Cuisinart BFP-703CH SmartPower Duet Blender and Food Processor, Chrome
|
List Price: Our Price: $69.99 You Save: $115.01 (62%) Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days Category: Kitchen See more product details |
|---|
Kitchen and Housewares Reviews of Cuisinart BFP-703CH SmartPower Duet Blender and Food Processor, Chrome
Customer Review: Worst Blender I've ever had
Summary: 1 Stars
I've never had much luck in blenders, in fact, I've never had a good one. Out of all the bad I've had, this one really takes the cake.
Noise Level!
I read other reviews were people said that this product is quiet. It is not quiet. You can go to a jamba juice and it is less loud there when they have three of their blenders going than when I turn this on. I have to be really careful as I live in a townhouse with a neighbor on each wall. Both neighbors have complained about the noise from the blender. I have a small kitchen and the thing is not exactly tiny.
Food Processor/Food Slicer!
The food processor is very limited in how you want it sliced. It either does those longer slices or really tiny. The food gets stuck on the sides of the top instead of having all food just sliced. The slices are always uneven, I've tried to remedy this with no luck.
I often make a lot of green smoothies. This piece of work has a hard time blending bananas, much less anything else. I always get disheartened and worried as I have to constantly stick things down near the blade to help it work when it's on food processor. It isn't very good with ice, don't even try it. It has a hard time with frozen fruit, so don't try the ice. The other day the item actually started spinning when I had it on stir. The juice was coming out of the bottom and all over the counter. That should not be happening. The lid does fit very well, but juice can come out of it as well. You can't fill this up beyond 2/3 of the container.
Watch out when you pour, it will drip over the sides if you try and pour it in a regular cup. I've never gotten it to pour without it spilling down the outside of the blender or over the sides of the cup.
Buttons!
I knew this ahead of time, but the blender has no puree option. You really don't know how much you need that option until you don't have it. The food processor is not a puree option like others have inclined. I tried this with butternut squash and it just wouldn't work. The pulse option doesn't do much. I only really ever use 3 buttons- on, off, and food processor. Ice crush doesn't work at all, it has never worked as the ice just builds up on the sides and the blades keep going but really don't do anything. You have to pour liquid down it in order for it to actually do chopping. Having just fruits, ice, vegetables will not work. Stir and chop really don't do anything other than have the thing spin, which food processor does. It's very limited and has no varying speeds.
Cleaning!
Pain in the butt to clean. I don't stick this stuff in my dishwasher, I hand wash. So much gunk gets stuck down in the blades and it's really hard to get off. I don't trust the blades for the food processor at all (cut myself so many times) that I just soak them in warm soap water overnight so I don't have to clean around them.
Durability!
It has "lasted" for over a year- but with minimum usage. I believe I've used it a total of 20 times. I bought it from a store and at that time it was around $130. I can't believe I paid that price for this object when I am just going to have to find a different one that works soon. It's also beginning to show signs that objects are loosening as shown in my earlier statement object the whole thing spinning off while on stir.
It's really a shame I can't use this item as effectively as I would like. I'll have to stick with my juicer until I can find a blender that works.
Customer Review: My Cuisinart Blender
Summary: 5 Stars
This is my second Cuisinart blender/processor I've purchased. My first I found at Costco and I fell absolutely in love with it, it was the model previous to this one, it was amazing but unfortunately it was tilted while turned on and something broke on the inside that couldn't be fixed.
If you are using the blender (or any blender for that matter) and you end up with an air pocket around the blades and your food stops spinning you MUST resist the urge to lean it over or to give it a little giggle because it will only end badly. You either have to turn it off and use a spatula to let the air out OR it means what you are blending isn't wet enough and you must add more water/juice/broth, some times both happen at once. The fist time I did this the black plastic clutch driver broke (the piece on the base that has teeth-like parts that connects to another similar looking part on the underside of the blender jar), because I loved this machine so much and I hate throwing things out that can be fixed myself I found the part on amazon for only a couple dollars and replaced it using instructions I looked up online. It was easy peasy and I was pretty pleased with myself, although I didn't learn my lesson and the plastic that holds the motor in place broke, that's when I had to reluctantly throw it away.
I could not wait to be able to get another one to replace it and I found this newer model and ordered it without any hesitation. Now that I know what NOT to do my blender works like a dream. I use it to make frozen fruit smoothies nearly every morning for my family, they are never less than outstanding. These also make great milk shakes and I've made spiced squash soup that was delish. On most blenders they have all the varying settings that all seem to do the same thing but on the Cuisinart you can easily tell the difference between each one, they all serve their purpose.
The food processor is what it is. It's a decent feature for a 2 in 1 type of deal. It won't accomplish all the fancy things you could do with a full size model with all the types of blades but for every day things it gets the job done. I have used it to make baby food, salad dressings, frosting, pesto for pizza, and even homemade peanut butter. For this to work to its full potential you need to have a decent quantity of food inside, I tried to mince up a few cloves of garlic and they just ended up swirling around and sticking to the sides, a task better done by hand with a knife.
Overall it's durable, powerful, extremely easy to use/take apart/clean, you can use it every single day with no need to worry about the motor burning out, and you can't beat the price. Considering you get a fantastic blender and a pretty good food processor together for less than you could pay for each separately most will be more than pleased.
I'd say that anyone with common sense and some kitchen know-how can use this with very few problems. I definitely recommend it!
Customer Review: Cuisinart BFP-703ch
Summary: 2 Stars
I was mega excited to find this product at my local Big Lots discount store. Now, I'll admit that most of their products are messed up in some capacity, but I really wanted a food processor and was in need of a blender, so at $40, I was not going to refuse.
Blender: After 1 or 2 uses, the rubber gasket (or the part that looks like a little black rubber bur grinder) in the bottom of the glass jug came loose and shot out WHILE I was blending. Wasn't even anything heavy or tough; just a smooth with some soft fruit and a whole lot of liquid. After this mishap, I contacted Cuisinart and they were more than willing to oblige in re-refurbishing my broken new toy. It took me a while to get it together, but once I sent it in (the glass jug, motor base and lid) a brand new-looking one returned within 3-4 weeks (faster than I expected). I also expect most blenders to be quite loud, as they are made to pulverize and liquify whatever you put in there. But this blender is ridiculously loud, no matter how low a setting you put it on. Hurts my ears.
Food Processor: Only comes with one blade which does what is supposed to be a medium size shred on one side and a fine slice on the other. The slicing side does a fine job; I put a potato in there, almost whole (save for a small shave off each side to make it fit into the feeding tube) and it was sliced in less than five seconds flat! Amazing! But if someone were to try to talk to me afterward, I wouldn't have known. Again, the motor is ridiculously loud. Painfully.
As for the grating side, I've tried cheese, carrots and of course potatoes. Potatoes were turned into a good size hashbrown meal, which cooked up nicely, but the cheese (slightly frozen for ease of grating monterey jack) turned into what resembled powdered snow. Awful.
As for food processing, it does the job, but nothing fantastic. I do like the food processor function (used it to make pesto with basil, garlic and walnuts and came up with fine results).
All in all, VERY loud. Alright blender, could be better. Grater pulverizes rather than grates. Lastly, even with the heavy weight of the motor base and the rubber feet, the whole unit hops around my counter even if I'm doing some simple like mixing dry ingredients for a cake.
Customer Review: Returned this in only 24 hours
Summary: 1 Stars
The design on this has some major flaws, which really surprised me given Cuisinart's long experience in the business. The food processor lid has a full 1" gap between the blade and lid, where pieces of food get caught when trying to use the grater/slicer blade, and clang around inside or get stuck and stress the motor. The plastic pusher, which you use to hold food in place for grating or slicing, was for no good reason at all designed to be very slightly asymmetrical, so that it only goes in one way (but the curvature on both sides is similar, and so the correct direction isn't obvious). The processor lid is difficult to get seated correctly. The spindle holding the slicer/grater blade into the food processor base sits on a plastic piece that is stressed when pushing down to grate or slice firm foods like carrots, and in fact this was the part on mine that failed within an hour of its first use. To be fair, I was preparing a dinner for 40 people, so I had a lot of carrots and beets to deal with, but this is also exactly what these devices are for.
It's mentioned several times that the motor on this thing is like a jet engine, and it is. It's so loud that it is certainly a safety issue, and might damage someone's hearing. The button mechanism for the food processor is also really inconvenient, and might pose a safety hazard. In effect, there's no "pulse" option so you can have fine control, but instead you press "on," then "food processor," and the thing goes wild until you press "off" (a third button). If you need to shut it off quickly I can imagine this might be an issue.
All of this hits me in a pet peeve, I admit. When I go see a movie it particularly irks me if the writing is bad, given the kind of talent available, and the fact that good writing can't be much more expensive than bad. Similarly in an appliance like this I just don't see why they bring a bad design to production, when it can't possibly cost a lot more to do it right. The good news is that if enough of us send our unsatisfactory machines back to Cuisinart, maybe they'll get the message.
Customer Review: Can't think of a single positive thing to say about it
Summary: 1 Stars
We're shopping for a new blender on Amazon and thought we'd fulfill our civic/Amazon obligation to warn everyone away from this mistake that we made not too long ago
Now that the blender jar base has cracked and it won't hold liquids, we can finally write off this piece of junk and get something less pricey and, with any luck, less disappointing in every way, including:
1. noise
This is the loudest kitchen appliance we've ever heard, and that's even including vacuum cleaners, if you are messy enough to keep one in the kitchen. With the food processor mounted on the base, in particular, the sound is really a risk to your hearing. No matter the blending speed you use, your neighbors will know you're up to something, if they live within a country mile, so maybe this can be a moneymaker if you charge for drinks, say. And that would be good since you will need the money to invest in earplugs and hearing aids.
2. shoddy construction
We're buying a new blender because the base broke, and that's even though we used it exceptionally infrequently, on account of the noise, so it didn't get unscrewed and re-screwed back on all that often
3. not all that great a blender
Can't speak to the food processor (b/c we've never owned one before), but the blender I use in my classroom at school that I bought on our $19 departmental budget for lab use is much quieter and makes quick work of ice for smoothies. (Sometimes i stretch the definition of lab supplies and educational activities. Don't worry; I only use it for edible lab supplies)
Actually, shoddy construction may not be a problem, in this case, since it's allowing us to get rid of the thing with no qualms, finally