Vitamix vs Blendtec

Last year or so, as soon as I made the decision that my household was in need of a powerful blender/food processor in our kitchen, I began to compare the Vitamix vs Blendtec. Both the blenders have sound customer bases, so I had to dig a little bit deeper to choose the best one for me.

CLICK HERE FOR GREAT DEALS ON THE VITAMIX

To start with, a little history ... I initially found out about the Vitamix when I was at my parent's house last year. I noticed this powerful looking machine on their kitchen counter and inquired about it. My Mom proceeded to show me the recipe manual that she was given with the Vitamix. I was blown away at the variety of foods that this one machine had the ability of creating so fast.

There were soups galore in the manual including baked potato soup, sweet potato soup, chicken tortilla soup, and miso soup to identify a few. There were juices ranging from garden vegetable to frozen strawberry grape juice to fresh orange juice.

CLICK HERE FOR GREAT DEALS ON THE BLENDTEC

I knew that I wished to improve the eating patterns of my family and I thought the Vitamix or the Blendtec would be a step in the right direction in terms of infusing additional fruits and veggies into my family's diet.
When analyzing both products, there's several important features to take into account when arriving at your decision.


QUALITY
I looked through a sizeable number of reviews and located that both the Vitamix and the Blendtec win a hearty two thumbs up for their quality and durability. They both hav 64 ounce jars and a very secure fitting lid, which is simple to take on and off. I know for me this was important. The blender I had prior to my Vitamix had the worst lid. It was very hard to put the lid on and off. The Vitamix has a rubber lining around the top that is flexible, making it extremely painless to put on and off.


USABILITY
The actual interface on each blender is where the blenders vary greatly.

Vitamix
The Vitamix has three controls consisting of a high and low lever, a variable speed control knob and the on and off switch.

Blendtec
The Blendtec utilizes digital buttons to start the machine. There are nine buttons to choose from when you're about to blend something. The buttons include:
on the top line of buttons:
speed up
speed down
pulse
and the bottom line of buttons include:
ice cream and frozen yogurt
ice crush\/milkshake soups, syrups, fondues
salads, dips, dressings, batters
whole juice
smoothie

I came across a handful of reviews from people who have personally owned both the blenders and they have the same complaints about the buttons on the Blendtec. They say that if you push the wrong button, then you have to wait for it to warm up and then push an additional button and wait for it warm up, and this routine can get frustrating. With the Vitamix, you just throw everything in and use the variable control to get the strength you want. It is very easy and straight forward.
When I was analyzing the two products, I was worried about how long the digital buttons would really work. I have had issues with digital buttons before on kitchen appliances burning out and flat out not working anymore. I tend to go for the simpler designs for this reason. There are fewer parts that can break.:)

SIZE
The Vitamix at 20 inches tall is five inches taller than the Blendtec at 15 inches. Each of blenders have a 64 oz jar, the base sizes are different. Also the top of the blender on the Vitamix is bigger. I like how easy the top is to put on the Vitamix with a solid rubber perimeter.

There are reviewers that like the more compact design of the Blendtec for their kitchens. The size was not really a consideration for me, but I can see from other customer reviews that size is an issue. Some prefer the smaller size of the Blendtec, while some are just fine with the larger size of the Vitamix.
  
CLICK HERE FOR GREAT DEALS ON THE BLENDTEC

WARRANTY
The Vitamix provides a 7 year Warranty on all parts and pieces of the product. There are numerous discussions indicating that the customer service is sensational. The company will send you a new machine if anything goes wrong with your intial purchase for the first seven years. This gave me great peace of mind when I was in the market. You just register your number on their website after buying and you are covered for 7 years.

The Blendtec provides a 3 year warranty on the base, lifetime warranty on coupling and blade and a 1 year warranty on the jar. This is still wonderful guarantee period, but I did view some grievances about Blendtec's customer service.
 
The Vitamix models with variable controls are typically $ 50 - $ 100 more than their corresponding Blendtec models. This greater price is undoubtedly due to the longer 7 year full warranty period with the Vitamix as opposed to the 3 year warranty period for the Blendtec.

Conclusion: Vitamix vs Blendtec

There is no doubt that both the Vitamix and Blendtec are extremely powerful machines that can easily create lots of different meals and drinks from creamy smoothies to piping hot soups to ice cream. The main distinctions are the size, warranty and user interface. I personally chose the Vitamix for the simple user interface and 7 year warranty. However, I do not think you can go wrong with either machine. Good luck in with your selection when thinking about the Vitamix vs Blendtec!