Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

I make a daily smoothie which includes tough and fibrous fruits and vegetables. I've used several brands of blenders and find the KitchenAid Classic works best. Valued features of the KitchenAid Classic: -Very large blender jar with blade only at the bottom makes for easy loading of large fruits and vegetables. -Chops and blends ingredients quickly and thoroughly. 1-2 minutes. -Blade creates a powerful vortex which pulls all ingredients into the blade assuring thorough chopping and mixing. -Easy to remove and replace lid with one hand. -Can easily add ingredients while it is running. -Easy to clean. No disassembly required. ------------------------------------------------------- I had tried Ninja Pro blender at similar price and in comparison to Kitchen Aid I found: -Blades at top and middle of Ninja make it difficult to load large vegetables and fruits due to the blades at top and in the middle being in the way. -Ninja not effective at chopping and blending. After running for 5 minutes ingredients where not thoroughly mixed and smoothie was too chunky. -Ninja blades don't create a vortex so ingredients just go round and round (stirred rather than pulled into the blade to be chopped and mixed) -Ninja lid cannot removed and replaced with one hand. -Cannot add any ingredients while Ninja is running. -Ninja cleaning requires disassembly and separate cleaning of blade unit. Blade unit has a large deep hole at the bottom which is difficult to clean out. -Ninja jar has many nooks and crannies which are difficult to clean.