The R'VIEW

(PLEASE NOTE: RE:BELLE will be taking a break until June 1 2012.)

Sometimes, after having lived a wild, wild life, a person wants to settle down. And when that time comes, a person realizes that the very thing he or she needs to help with this settling down is a blender. Don't ask- it's in the rule books! Also, let's face it- you might want to settle down but you also want the whirring/purring of some beast of a machine as your life's sound track. And so the search begins for the perfect machine that will allow you to say goodbye to store-bought puréed veggies, smoothies and bartender Joe's special mojitos and hello hello to do-it-your-self beastiful mixes.

It took me all of four weeks to settle on my particular monster (see monster's picture below):

Philips HR2000/50 Silver Blender with 1.5 Litre Jar, 400 Watt

That is, it took me four weeks to realize I didn't need a blender with a 600 or 1 cajimilllion watts motor and 27 different speeds. Nor did I need some state of the art NASA-invented gremlin that would cost me a kidney or lung. I just needed a machine that could blend me up award-winning drinks and smoothies, purée veggies for the perfect soup and crush ice in a way that would bring tears to my eyes- but I wouldn't cry...because I've lived a wild life and seen things.

My monster of choice? Got it from Amazon- The Philips HR2000/50...with its 400 watt motor, 2 speeds (plus a pulse function), 1.5 litre jar and 5-star blade which promised me that it would “create perfect end results”. It also promised that it was easy to clean- detachable blade and jar with all parts (except the blender base of course) being dishwasher-proof. Oh and let's not forget the break-resistant jar (handy for those of us whose hands are just too awesome for stuff to stay put). And winner winner- it cost me around ₤27.99 (That would make it US$44 or thereabouts, no?  It was actually cheaper by at least ₤3, but I sat on it for weeks, then up the price went!)

Honestly, I was a bit anxious about my new purchase- what with those few reviews on Amazon that talked about hot soup leaking out the base or that one review which said it couldn't grind/blend things to save its life.

But, here is what I found:

Fruits and veggies:

It has now been two months since I've been making a name for myself with my top-of-the-line smoothies. The blender handles semi-large pieces of fruit and vegetables quite well. I've tried frozen fruits as well and it does just as fine a job- though there was that one time it struggled for a bit with some frozen pineapple cubes. Obviously, you can't be packing a year's worth of fruit and veggies in there.

Soups:

While I haven't used it to process soups, I have made a loan of it to others for this purpose and well...I haven't heard any complaints- yet.

Ice-crushing:

I've found that it does a much better job with store-bought ice cubes as opposed to my all grown-up and made-at-home ice cubes. With the 'grown-up' ice, it spluttered a bit as if questioning my sanity/cruelty and then there were always one or two chunks that didn't get completely crushed. I can live with that, I suppose.

Noise:

No, the thing isn't whisper-silent. But neither is it war-zone loud. It's somewhere in between. Not too irritating- but not something you'd crank up in the middle of the night in a house of light-sleepers. Unless...that's how you roll....

Leakage:

I've had one episode so far.  Liquid started leaking out the base and then it was all over the counter. But, I take almost-full blame for that. I was so eager to get me some strawberry-pineapple-banana goodness and was probably less than careful with securing the thing. If it happens again...then, I'll start worrying.

Overall vote?

I'd definitely give this machine a 4 out of 5. I'll also give it more time to see if it can crank that up to a 5/5. Let's see how long it lasts with constant use or if it grows up to handle my ice cubes a bit better.