I bought this over a month ago and I really do like it and all of the great features however it doesn't blend frozen fruit very well for smoothies (it jams up) and it doesn't seem to work as well as shown in the demonstration that I saw at Costco. It is also very loud.
My interest in Blendtec came from an infomercial I was watching while waiting at a tattoo shop. I was particularly impressed with the quality of materials and workmanship. Later, that day I googled Blendtec and saw we get what we pay for...a bit pricey for my wallet. Well, during Amazon's Prime day in July I could not resist saving about 40% off of retail price! I've used the blender every single morning for a wide variety of different smoothies and on a couple of occasions for some frozen ritas. They have all turned out smooth - absolutely no solids or chunks at all. This is in contrast to a Vitamix I bought for my Ex a couple of years ago. Vitamix gets killer reviews - but the bottom line is: the Vitamix frequently leaves behind a lot of pulp and other unblended chunky material. I highly recommend the Blendtec to any - or all - blending enthusiasts! You will not be disappointed. Plus the blender's 'auto' buttons/ functions take all the guesswork out of blending. And even with it's powerful motor does not vibrate and is NOT so loud it wakes the neighbors-lol! In addition, it fits nicely under the kitchen cabinets = small footprint for an 'industrial strength' blender
My husband makes smoothie every morning and he is very happy to use our recently bought BlendtecTotal with Wildside. It's simple in design, but superb in blending fruits and vegetables. I made soy milk in the blender as well as smoothies. I like the simplicity , functionality and the price, which is much lower than Vitamix blender. Thanks to Costco, where I bought the blender.
It performs extremely well. My only disappointment is a better guide to what speeds to use for what purposes. I am experimenting, but there are so many possibilities for length of time and speed, it would be nice for a technical guide for speed and time to accomplish certain tasks. Yes it depends what you are blending, so use a examples (ice, carrot, apple, ripe fruit etc.) that provide something of a standard. It certainly makes great nut milks easily, a vast improvement over buying such products.
It is everything you would want in a Blender-my only complaint is that there is no description for each button on my machine. The pictures included are not the same so it makes a bit of trial and error when following recipes through the book included.
I was in the market for a smoothie blender, and Blendtec received high marks in several recipe books. I watched a demonstration of the product at Costco and picked one up there after visiting the Blendtec website. I'm very happy with it.