This review was written by co-runner of TrainingBeta, Seth Lytton. It’s super thorough and as he will tell you, despite what you think, your blender is probably not as good as it could be….
Enter Seth….
Alright, so you might be asking yourself why a website about climbing training is doing a review on a blender? Good question. Neely is a nutritionist and we have found diet and nutrition to be an integral part of our climbing performance.
If you ask almost any professional athlete about diet, they will tell you that, at the very least, it’s something that they spend time experimenting with. Most, however, will say that diet is an important part of their performance.
A couple of aspects of any healthy diet are:
- Plenty of veggies and fruits
- Homemade meals from scratch
The downside to trying to eat lots of veggies and fruits and making your own food is that it can be time consuming. And while many people have the desire to improve their diet, they don’t necessarily have the time to make it happen.
That’s where a blender comes in handy.
Now I know what you’re thinking: ‘I have a blender, it cost me $100 at Target and it works fine.’
I’m here to tell you that after experiencing a good blender, your blender does not “work fine” – it sucks.
We had access to a blender for years and we, too, thought that it “worked fine”.
(our old blender)
We would occasionally try to make a smoothie, but there would always be chunks of unblended fruits and the veggies that would never break down all the way. In the end, we would be chewing our way through a lumpy vegetal smoothie and regretting having spent all the money on the ingredients. On top of the sub-par results, the process was frustrating. We had to constantly jam the ingredients down into the blades with a spoon (which almost ended in the loss of a digit on several occasions), it was super loud, and it was awful to clean.
We hated the results and the process, so we never used the blender. It just sat on our counter and once a year we would try to make a smoothie, realize it sucked, and then go buy one at the farmers market. All this time if you asked us about the blender we would have said “yeah, it’s fine”.
Enter the Blendtec 725 Designer Series
The Blendtec 725 Designer Series (I’ll call it the 725 from now on) has changed the way we live our lives. We have had the blender for around 3 months and I can’t imagine how I ever lived without it. When we travel, I pine for my delicious, perfectly smooth smoothies. When we visited family, I was cursing the fact that I had to hand mix batter for our favorite bread substitute, tapioca crepes. The 725 has really proven itself an invaluable part of our kitchen and it turns out you really don’t know how much you need something until it’s gone.
Will It Blend?
Now you might know the Blendtec name from their viral marketing campaign, “Will It Blend”, and if you don’t you should check it out because it’s hilarious. I’ve included a video below and there are many more where that came from.
As you can see in the video above, their blenders are pretty good at blending stuff, but let’s talk about features.
The Features
- 3.8 peak horsepower motor (the most powerful motor in a consumer blender)
- Touch screen interface
- Wildside+ Jar (Makes pouring easy and increases blending efficiency)
- Twister Jar
- 6 preprogramed cycles
- Self Cleaning
- Recipe Books
- Small Footprint
- High End Design
- 8-year warranty
So this is really where the 725 sets itself apart from your everyday blender. These specs don’t mean much on their own, so let me tell you a little more about how it performs and the pros and cons that I’ve noticed.
Motor
The motor in the 725 is impressive. I have put ice, huge chunks of frozen fruit, large pieces of sweet potato, etc. into the 725 and it has never been bogged down. In fact, I put in 2 sweet potatoes chopped into quarters and 3 min later I was pouring out a steaming sweet potato purée. The power of this blender is far beyond anything I would have expected.
What do all of these specs mean to you? Well, some people claim that the blades spin so fast that they actually break down the cell walls of the plant material. In theory this makes the nutrients in the food more accessible to your body. I don’t know if that’s true, but what I do know is that it can liquify almost anything. When we blend raspberries in a smoothie the seeds are actually partially broken down and when we blend a whole orange the skin is completely liquified. This means that whether you’re blending a soup, a smoothie, or a puree you will be getting a perfectly smooth and delicious result.
Touchscreen Interface
This is pretty cool. I’ll admit I was a little worried in the beginning that it was a gimmick. I was also worried that when adding wet items to the blender I might accidentally press a button and turn on the blender with a drop of water. I did some research about this and found that it wouldn’t be possible for that to happen. So, aside from my personal misconceptions, the touchscreen interface is awesome.
There are several preset blend options as well as a really nice slider to control the blade speed if you would prefer not to use one of the presets. The slider feature takes the place of an up and down arrow to change the speed and it feels totally natural on the touchscreen interface.
The touchscreen also displays funny quotes like “Will It Blend?” and gives you coupon codes that can be redeemed at blendtec.com as you reach blending milestones like 50 blends, 100 blends, 200 blends, etc.
The 725 will also warn you when the blender is experiencing cavitation (a problem where the blades are no longer blending because an air pocket has formed around them) and advise you to add more liquid. These features, while obviously not necessary in a blender, help to create a high end feel that lets you know that Blendtec really thought about how a blender is used and how the 725 could do it better.
Wildside+ Jar
I’ve been really impressed by the jar. Our old blender used a thick glass jar that looked pretty nice and gave the blender an expensive feel, so when I saw that the 725 came with a plastic jar I was a little disappointed. That is, until I saw the reason for it: the motor in the 725 is so powerful that it would shatter a glass jar.
When we received the 725 I was pleasantly surprised by the quality of the Wildside+. It’s comfortable to hold, seems super durable, requires no deconstruction to clean, comes with a 3-year warranty, and is BPA free. After over 200 blends the jar is showing no signs of deterioration or discoloration.
Pouring from this jar is really nice. Our old blender had a pour spout, but it was always hard to get the blended items out of the blender without making a mess. The Wildside+ jar avoids this problem due to its square design. Because the jar is a square each of the 4 corners are a built in pour spout, which makes it super ease to pour with either hand.
The blade is yet another perk to this jar. Every blender I’ve ever had has come with a super sharp 4-pronged blade that is really hard to clean, chews up my spatulas when I’m scooping out the last of the smoothie, and has the potential to draw blood. The Wildside+ has a dull blade that only has two prongs. I don’t really know how this works, but it does, and it eliminates all of the frustrations that come from the more typical 4 pronged design.
Twister Jar (Add-On)
This jar is an additional $129 and comes with a spatula and a crazy twister lid that allows you to stir your ingredients while they are being blended. We were given this jar to try out and while it’s quite a bit smaller than I expected, I could see it being really useful if you wanted to make your own nut butters, grind your own grains, or make your own mayonnaise. We’ve just been using it to make mayonnaise since we don’t eat nuts or use normal flours.
The larger Wildside+ jar is capable of making nut butter, grinding grains, and making mayonnaise too, but it isn’t as efficient at it. It would probably require that you stop periodically and scrape some of the liquifying material off of the side. In addition, because of the jar size you would need to put in a lot of ingredients in order to submerge the blades. With something like nut butter, you might not want 3 cups of it, which is why the smaller Twister Jar is nice.
Ultimately, given our food preferences I don’t think I would spend the money on this additional jar. However, if we still ate nut butter and grains I would buy it in a heartbeat. Nut butter is extremely expensive and to have a quick, easy way to make it at home forever would be well worth the $129.
Here’s a sweet video of the jar in action.
6 Preprogrammed Cycles
The preprogrammed cycles are really nice and provide an easy way to get a variable speed blend without making constant adjustments. For example, the smoothie setting starts out slow to pull the large pieces of fruits and veggies into the blades, after 10 seconds it speeds up and starts to break down the ingredients further, after 20 seconds it speeds up again and runs at full speed for another 25 seconds to fully blend everything. This process helps prevent cavitation by utilizing the appropriate blend speed for the size of the items in the jar.
My gripe with the preprogrammed cycles is that they seem a little optimistic. It might be personal preference, but I almost always add 20 seconds to the smoothie cycle to get it as smooth as I like it. The upside here is that they made it super easy to add more time to the cycle. You can just hit the preset button again after the blender has started and it will add 10 seconds per press to the blend time.
There is also a cleaning cycle, a batter cycle that we use for our crepe batter, a soup cycle that makes delicious hot raw soups (yes, it actually makes it hot), a salsa cycle, a whole juice cycle (blends fruit into a very thin liquid), and an ice cream cycle. We haven’t really used the last 3 cycles yet, but there are some delicious looking recipes that come with the blender that use the cycles and hopefully we’ll get around to trying them.
Self Cleaning
One of my biggest complaints about our old blender was cleaning it. In order to clean it you had to remove the blade from the jar, wash the blades, the rubber gasket that went around the blade, and the plastic shroud that held the blade onto the glass jar. This meant that there were 4 separate pieces that needed to be cleaned and that you had to worry about losing. You also had to come in contact with the sharp 4-pronged blade of the blender, which definitely drew blood.
In this arena the 725 is revolutionary. The blade is dull, and permanently affixed to the Wildside+ jar. This means that there is no disassembly required to get the jar completely clean. The 725 also spins fast enough that it can clean itself. All you have to do is place 2 cups of water and a little dish soap in the jar and press the self clean preset button.
The 725 runs for 20 seconds, you rinse out the jar, and then you’re on to the next thing. Super simple and really nice.
Recipe Book
We almost never use recipe books. I find most of our recipes online or make them up. However, the recipes that come along with the 725 have not only been delicious, they have helped me get a better idea of what I can do with the blender. We have used a really good mayonnaise recipe to make homemade mayo, and I used one of their purée recipes to give me an idea of how to make sweet potato purée.
Overall the recipe book isn’t a selling point, but it’s a useful addition that I appreciate having around our kitchen.
Small Footprint
You probably don’t know this about us, but we live in what is quite possibly the smallest apartment in the world. It’s 150 square feet. I know what you’re thinking and I don’t have to explain myself to you! But I will anyway. After our time living in the van and on the road we got very used to cramped spaces. We plan to continue our travels now that Neely’s shoulder is back in action and we didn’t need a big place while we sat around in Boulder for her surgery. Also the rental scene in Boulder is ridiculously expensive, so that didn’t help.
Anyway, we have a small apartment and therefore we have a small kitchen where counter space is at a premium. The beauty of the 725 is that it easily fits under our cabinets and and doesn’t take up too much space on the counter.
High End Design
Honestly this is one of the most beautifully designed appliances I’ve ever seen. It feels solid, it is easy to clean, and has a really nice brushed stainless steel finish, all of which contribute to a really great looking appliance that I’m happy to see on my counter every day.
8-Year Warranty
As far as I’m concerned an 8-year warranty is just about as good as it gets. I mean, I have to pay an extra $100 to get a 2 year warrantee on my iPhone and it costs more than this blender. The warrantee gives me the piece of mind that I could use this appliance 10 times a day for the next 8 years and if anything happens I’ll be covered.
Support
The first 725 that I received from Blendtec malfunctioned after two weeks, which was a blessing and a curse. It was a blessing because I had the opportunity to talk with their support staff and experience just how seriously they take their warranty. It was a curse because I had to live without my amazing blender for 3 days while they shipped me a new one.
Here’s an abbreviated version of how the support call went.
Me: “Hey, my blender is doing weird stuff and making weird noises. What’s up with that?”
Blendtec: “Hello, we’re sorry that you’re having trouble. Here are some troubleshooting steps.”
Me: “Those didn’t work.”
Blendtec: “No problem, sounds like you received a damaged blender. We’re sending you a brand new one right now and we’ll throw in a Twister Jar for your trouble. You should receive them in 2 days.”
Me: “Cool, but hurry up and send it because I NEEEED my blender!”
Obviously I was pretty happy with that interaction and I was really impressed with the woman who spoke with me on the phone.
The Downsides
- It’s Loud
- It’s Expensive (for a blender)
It’s Loud
As you might expect, having a 3.8 horsepower motor running in your kitchen and grinding large pieces of frozen fruit can get pretty noisy. However, in comparison to our old blender I don’t notice that much of a difference. Blendtec does sell a quieter blender, the Professional 800, but it retails for $1000 which is a little out of our price range. Apparently it’s the quietest blender on the market though, so if noise is a big issue and cost isn’t, you might want to look into the Professional 800.
* The quietest blender in the world…
I was hoping that the 725 would be quiet, capable of blending just about everything, well designed, and durable. You don’t always get everything you want, but 3/4 is pretty good.
It’s Expensive
Expensive is a relative term. To be more precise, the Blendtec 725 Designer Series blender retails for $649.95. I can’t say if that amount is worth it to you, but most of us spend that much on a phone every two years. While I don’t use my 725 as much as my phone, it is a once in a lifetime purchase, so for me it is worth the money.
If you balk at the price tag on the 725, Blendtec has some really great deals on refurbished blenders. You can get one of their refurbished 625 Designer Series blenders for $379.95, which comes with most of the same great features, but has a slightly less powerful motor (3 peak horsepower) and comes with a 7-year warranty instead of an 8-year warranty.
If you’re looking to save even more money you can opt for one of the Refurbished Classic Series blenders, which retail for $279.95. These blenders have the same 3 peak horsepower motor as the designer 625, but they don’t have the capacitive touch screen. Instead they come with a manual push button interface and a LED display. However, if you’re looking for a really powerful and slightly less fancy blender this is a great option.
So, while the 725 is pretty pricy there are options from Blendtec that bring the price down while still giving you a really nice blender with a great warranty. If you are in the market for a blender definitely check out their website.
Conclusion
You can probably tell that I’m a fan of Blendtec’s 725 Designer Series blender. The 725’s combination of useful features and quality design have literally changed my life. I have gone from using my old blender around once a month to using the Blendtec 725 Designer Series on a daily basis. I am consuming at least twice the amount of fruits and vegetables, saving literally hours of my life mixing batter for our various baked goods, and I’m saving money by making things like organic smoothies, soups, and purées at home, instead of paying a premium for them at the store.
If you’re interested in picking up one of these bad boys for yourself I have worked out a deal with Blendtec to get you free shipping.
They also have refurbished models available, so check those out and you can save some money while still getting a sweet blender.
Buy A Blendtec With Free Shipping
About Seth Lytton, TrainingBeta’s In-House Training Fanatic and Tech Guy
This post was written by Seth Lytton (Neely’s husband), whose climbing accomplishments include 5.14s and V11s. He has spent the last 13 years of his life climbing and has developed a serious interest in the nuances and research behind climbing training.
Seth is an integral part of TrainingBeta, making things work smoothly and look pretty on the site (he has a degree in design as well as computer science).
