Magic Bullet Express 17-Piece High-Speed Blender Mixing System
|
List Price: Our Price: $54.84 You Save: $5.15 (9%) Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days Buy Used: from $25.14 (click here) Category: Kitchen See more product details |
|---|
Kitchen and Housewares Reviews of Magic Bullet Express 17-Piece High-Speed Blender Mixing System
Customer Review: Overpriced and very limited in its usefulness
Summary: 2 Stars
There is a good reason that food processors and traditional blenders tend to be larger rather than smaller. For one thing, you need a motor of reasonable size and strength to handle everyday usage, and for another, the size of your blade makes a considerable difference in the effectiveness of the chopping. The Magic Bullet has neither a powerful motor nor large blades, which greatly limits what it can do.
I have seen these moronic commercials on TV for about a year. Since I have very good kitchen equipment already, I had no real need for one of these things, but I was curious nonetheless. I borrowed one from a friend who (surprise, surprise) was no longer using hers, just to see what it could do.
What it can do: If you like smoothies, this might actually make sense, because it does make them fairly well, and its capacity is just right for one serving. Of course, if you are making smoothies for a group of people, you would be better off with a blender, since you would have to blend repeatedly with the already messy Magic Bullet.
It can also grind coffee and spices fairly well, although one can buy a perfectly servicable coffee grinder in any department store for a fraction of the Magic Bullet's price.
It can also puree some fruits and some vegetables, although again in such small quantities that I found myself wondering what exactly was the point.
What it can't do:
It cannot chop nearly as effectively as a food processor. Any vegetable of much hardness will prove to be more than the wimpy blades and motor can handle. The motor is also likely to burn out from overuse, if you aren't careful.
It is, once again, really small, so unless you are cooking for one or (maybe) two people, you will find the machine to be rather impractical. The idea of preparing multiple meals for a hoard of guests, as shown in the infamous infomercial, is ridiculous. To have enough Magic Bullets on hand to feed that many guests, you could have purchased two or three top of the line food processors to do job in a fraction of the time.
Additionally, it appears to be poorly constructed. The one I used was holding together --- barely --- but I could see that repeated use would soon doom the cheap plastic parts.
By and large, I really don't see the point of the device, considering its cost. If it cost $20, I can see how some people might find it useful, but a decent blender doesn't cost nearly as much as the $99 price for the Magic Bullet. Even $59 very nearly can get you a good blender. One can even find a decent food processor for under $150, and it will certainly prove more useful in the long run and end up costing the consumer much less money, not to mention much less frustration.
Customer Review: Magic Bullet's Lousy Customer Support
Summary: 1 Stars
Whatever the good point of the Magic Bullet (it makes smoothies and grinds coffee beans ALMOST as well as a Cuisinart Food Processor/Blender and costs the same amount of money), they are completely overshadowed by the facts that:
1.) The simplest replacement parts are a HUGE hassle to get.
2.) Homeland Housewares level of customer service is way lower than average.
After less than a year's gentle, intermittent use, my Bullet chewed up both of 2 the gaskets it came with. Should be a simple and cheap replacement, right? Wrong! When I frirst contacted Homeland Housewares, the manufacturer, I was told flat out, that because my Bullet wasn't purchased directly from them (it had been a house warming present, purchased at Macy's), I could not buy replacement parts from the manufacturer. AND they could not recommend another source for them. My machine was effectively dead after only 7.5 months of use.
Searching the web 5 months later, I saw that the manufacturer was now offering to sell parts to everyone stuck with a non-functional Magic Bullet. But not without a huge hassle. Homeland Housewares demands that its customers, who have already been inconvenienced by the premature break down of its product, now invest the time & effort to send them 4 different photos of the machine AND a photo of the free recipe booklet included with the machine--yes, you heard right--the recipe booklet, BEFORE they will be granted the privilege of spending MORE money with the company to buy replacement gaskets.
I explained to Homeland Housewares' phone rep that photos taken with your average digital camera would not reproduce copy from the back of the machine which would be readable. The rep said, "Don't worry about it. Send them anyway." Two days later, I get an email reply from Homeland Housewares saying my photos are inadequate; before they'll allow me to purchase gaskets, they want me to submit a new set of photos. Photos showing WHAT, they neglected to say.
My girlfriend spent $83 for this glorified coffee grinder! It worked adequately for 7.5 months, before it chewed its own gaskets to pulp and became a dead weight. Now, I will not be "permitted" to give the manufacturer money for 4 new gaskets, unless my photos meet approval standards I was not informed of before I submitted the first set.
After 5.5 years, my Cuisinart Food Processor/Blender continues to make superior smoothies, among myriad other functions it performs beautifully, and Cuisinart has been beautifully responsive to my every question and need. Next time you consider a Magic Bullet as a house warming gift, I recommend the Cuisinart Food Processor/Blender, instead.
Customer Review: HAHA watch the infomercial again before you buy...
Summary: 2 Stars
Ok guys, this is my first review on Amazon, so congratulate me!
Anyways, I received the Magic Bullet for Christmas this year (2007). I was very happy, because I have seen the endless infomercials on this product. I am a weightlifter, and I eat a lot, so I was joyed.
Well, that joy turned to crap when I used it to make their "Chicken Quesadillas" recipe. I previously cubed the chicken, then put the ingredients in the provided mixing cup. Put on the proper blade, and did exactly what the instructions told me to do. Well, about 60% of the mixture was at the bottom where the blade was, and the other 40% was stuck on the top of the cup. I stop the blade and shake it like it says to do in the book, and tried it again. There will ALWAYS be food stuck at the top of the cup, and there will ALWAYS be an inconsistent mixture.
After 10 minutes of unscrewing/screwing the blade to dislodge the food mixture on top, I just said heck with it and I continued to make the food. Well, the food tasted good, but it SHOULD taste good.
Second thing I tried was a milkshake. I used exactly what the recipe book said: ice cream, and a splash of milk. Put on the proper blade, and again, there was a huge chunk of ice cream that would not blend. I shook and hit and shook the bullet, but it wouldnt blend to a smooth consistency. I still drank the milkshake, with clumps of ice cream that had to be eaten with a spoon instead of a straw.
Pluses:
-Food recipes taste good, like they SHOULD.
-Small size, but not too much smaller than a modern blender.
-Can make some interesting foods that can decrease the completion time of the food.
Minuses:
-Price
-Louder than a modern blender, in an annoying, grinding way.
-WILL NOT chop/blend/crush/smooth the contents in the mixing cup. 60% of the mixture will be soup, and the rest will be chunks of food that will not blend.
-Food gets stuck on the inside top of the mix cup, and you have to stop the blending, take the cup out, and shake it until the food falls down, and repeat about 25 times until most of the solids are finally blended.
I hope you all will read this and realize that I did exactly what the instructions said, and the product performed very poorly.
Watch the infomercial, and most of the mixing goes to a cut-screen of a persons face, or a large shot of the entire set, then will come back to the blended food that definitely would not have went from 80% solid to 100% liquid as shown in the infomercial in 3 seconds. Please rethink this purchase!
Customer Review: Bad reviews come from people who didn't read the directions
Summary: 5 Stars
If you're here reading reviews, I imagine you want the answer to two questions:
1) Does it do everything they say it does? Yes, it does. In fact, it also does a great job of foaming milk for cappuccino, which the advertisements never mention.
2) Is there a catch? A little, depending on what you call a catch.
- You really have to follow the directions explicitly. It seems to me that all these bad reviews come from people who didn't. The directions aren't at all complicated, but there are a couple things you have to do correctly in order to make it work and keep it from breaking. You can't just throw everything in and leave it on for a minute like a regular blender or it will break. Luckily, you don't need to because it blends anything in a few seconds.
-There is some technique. You need to learn how to "pulse" it in order to chop, rather than purée. Some reviewers were complaining that it puréed when they wanted it to chop. Since it's designed to do both, you can't just expect the blender to magically know which one you want it to do. You have to learn the pulsing technique in order to get it to chop, but it should only take a few tries before you get the hang of it.
-The chop is more like a shred. If you use the pulse technique for chopping, you'll get the same effect as a cheese grater, only much faster and it works on harder foods.
-It doesn't really chop (shred) watery foods so well. It's great for onions, meat or cheese. The commercial never claims that it will chop fruits and vegetables, but I think a lot of people got misled because it says it chops, so they assumed it would chop everything.
I really do use this every day. I use it to whip cream, beat eggs, make smoothies, make apple sauce or pear sauce, juice fruit, make sauces and guacamole, shred cheese and onions, foam milk and to mix flour together with milk, butter and eggs for pancakes.
UPDATE: I first wrote this in February 2006 and it is now October 2008. After pretty much daily use, my Magic Bullet is now on its last legs and I need to buy a new one. The cups have all cracked (I didn't drop them or anything), so that they leak when I blend. One of the tabs that hold the cups down broke, so that I have to make sure I insert it in exactly the right way to blend it. The blender is also leaking some black stuff, which can't be a good sign. I'll leave it up to the reader to decide whether or not this was a long enough life span for this product.
Customer Review: Don't Expect it to Wax Your Car
Summary: 5 Stars
I've had a Magic Bullet for over a year now and I have to say that I love it. In my home we never drank smoothies before I got this machine and now it is an all time summer treat. I've also used it to pulverize vitamin C pills for camping expeditions (they neutralize the taste/odor of iodine as water treatment). I've used it to make potato soup, dice onions, and various other uses.
The thing that I have found is that the machine does work, but the recipe booklet is faulty on almost every recipe they include. For example, you have to fill the machine at least 1/2 of the way full of liquid if you want a smoothie. Then, it will give you a non-chunky smoothie in under 30 seconds.
For dicing, use the grinding blade, not the ice pulverizing blade. Tap twice.
When I was first learning to use the machine, I made the mistake of over-chopping things and I ended up with super-runny foods. Most of what I read here, I can sympathize with, but the advice to give is that if it doesn't look done yet, then it probably is. For some reason, the appearance through the plastic bubble, and the actual result, don't match.
Another thing I'm reading is that the machine overheats. Duh! The instruction manual says not to run it for over 30 seconds on "lock" mode, and that over a minute of running will cause the machine to stop working until it cools down. Nothing has ever required that much (over 30 seconds worth) chopping. If it did, it was because there was liquid that was missing.
It is also small. The cups are about the size of two of your standard juice glasses. This means that it isn't going to cut up an entire melon, you aren't going to be able to make a roast turkey, or any other large-food item in the blender. Stick to small, single-serving things. If you are a single person, this is about the right size for you. If you want to make a pitcher of daiquiris for a party of 20+ people, it is way out of the league of this little coffee-cup sized blender's reach.
As a final point, I have had many food processors (which is what this bills itself as) over the course of my life and not a one of them doesn't fall under the failings listed here which include: vegetable chopped for too long gets runny, couldn't cook meals in it, cheese turns to goo when allowed to chop for a while, etc. Think of it as a food processor and you will not be disappointed. Think of it as a small food processor with easy clean-up and you will start to see that it earns its counter space.