Oster 4093 Classic Beehive Blender, Silver
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List Price: Our Price: $47.95 You Save: $22.04 (31%) Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days Category: Kitchen See more product details |
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Kitchen and Housewares Reviews of Oster 4093 Classic Beehive Blender, Silver
Customer Review: 13 years of hard service and still kicking
Summary: 5 Stars
Maybe I got lucky: 'Planned Obsolescence' being what it is, perhaps one of these made today will not be the same quality as the one I bought 13 years ago. But I bought this blender in 1997, and have replaced the ice grinding blade once, and now must replace the plastic collar at the base, because I dropped the glass carafe on the floor, and it bounced, did not break, but the collar and blade popped off... because the plastic collar had broken, yet the glass was unharmed.
About a year ago, I smelled that bad familiar smell of motor windings going, and feared I would soon be shopping for a replacement. It did lose a little power. So I have been babying it along, still grinding ice, but pulsing and pausing to stir down, instead of just running it straight like before.
Still getting granitas and mudslides out of it, just fine.
It also has been put to hard use grinding table salt into 'superfine' salt which I keep in a jar and use on popcorn.
Definitely one of the kitchen workhorses I treasure, but again, that's the model bought in 1997. I can't vouch for current manufacturing.
Customer Review: Smooth like a Blender should be
Summary: 5 Stars
I use this blender 3-4 times a week, mostly for smoothies (always with ice and some kind of frozen fruit, often large strawberries) and I LOVE IT. It blends very smoothly - I never have to turn it on and then off and on again for it to blend everything in the jar, it does that in one blending cycle.
Two cycles is all you need and more - especially when they work this well. I went to my mom's over Christmas and used her "Oster 6663 Designer 12-Speed Blender with Glass Jar" and it was world's apart - could hardly crush ice (even on the 12th speed, which had no difference from speeds 6-11) and left smoothies and milkshakes with a lot of floating, un-blended objects. Not so with this blender - it is as smooth as my local juice joint.
It is a blender, so there is some noise, but it was much less louder than I anticipated given the reviews here. Its never bothered me and I beleive it not as loud as the one at my moms (poor mom, need to get her one of these for next Christmas!).
And it is beautiful to have on my countertop. Easy to clean as well.
Customer Review: The best blender in the 50$ - 70$ range
Summary: 3 Stars
The bender over all preforms very good. I've made shakes, pastes, soups, smoothies, and vinaigrettes. It's a very simple blender with only 2 speeds and is much more reliable than variable speed blenders with allot of buttons.
Goods
-Blends things well for price
-Easy to clean
-Big glass jar (better than cheap plastics that crack over time)
-2 speeds
-Easy to use
-Chops up ice,vegetables, and most other things
-Very powerful compared to most other blenders
Bad
-Doesn't pull items to the bottom without a good amount of liquid
-The plastic bottom will leak after 2 weeks (fix it with some plumbers tape)
-The rubber gasket will need to be replace more often if you dissemble it allot
(soap dries out the rubber making it weak and not elastic)
-Glass jar is heavy and not durable as plastic
-Loud, but most blenders are
Other than that a very balanced blender for the price. I could not give it more than 3 stars because of some of the quirks.
Customer Review: Solid but noisy performance
Summary: 4 Stars
Like many of us, I turned to Consumer Reports to guide me in the search for a blender. The choice seemed obvious, but after reading some of the Amazon reviews, I could hardly reconcile the top ratings of CR with the thrashings that 'laypeople' gave it.In fact, most of the top choices by CR were reviewed very poorly here. I know you can't trust everything you read, but it was almost impossible to find a blender that didn't have a number of major complaints.
In the end, I went with the Oster because my girlfriend's mom had hers for over thirty years and it still worked like a champ. After several months of near daily use, I can say the following:
Bad - noisy; the glass flutes make a great place for powders to get stuck and not dissolve; not so easy to clean them
Good - strong motor; two speeds are fine (I almost never use the high speed because it goes from noisy to screaming banshee); decent looking.
What can I say? This blender continues to serve me well. It was reasonably priced and been very reliable. I would give it five stars except for the noise.
Customer Review: keep it simple stupid
Summary: 5 Stars
When my last blender gave up the ghost after several years, I noticed that I had rarely used more than two buttons on the machine (on and pulse). My old machine also had a "plastic" blend container, which eventually cracked. (I think it was the dishwasher). I determined that my next machine would be as simple and tough as I could find. Most of the machines I found were the "do everything" variety which to me means that they don't anything particularly well or they had plastic containers,parts,add-ons, etc.etc. As I said, I was looking for a simple, well built machine. The Oster 4093 seems to fit the bill. The blend container is heavy molded glass, and fits easily on the base with no hassel. The base is heavy metal, not plastic. It is sturdy and does not wobble. Parts are easily available (I checked). To operate the machine there is a simple toggle switch directly on the front of the base with only three settings-- on, pulse,and off. No buttons, extra switches, various speeds, etc..etc. If you are looking for a machine that does one job well, I recommend this one.