Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

Many reviewers have compared the VERSA to its obvious competitor, the Vitamix, which costs about twice as much. I'll compare it to a competitor at the other end of the scale: the Ninja Master Prep Professional, which costs less than one-third as much. Whether that's a fair comparison depends on what you want the appliances to do. I purchased the Ninja hoping to make smoothies more easily than in my blender or food processor, and it does. The Ninja has multiple nasty-sharp blades, can pulverize ice cubes, and can handle most of what I throw at it. It's quick to assemble, and easy to clean. It does a better job than the food processor or blender of pulling in the food and pulverizing it, instead of just spinning around underneath it making mush on the bottom without blending the top. It's a pretty good deal for the price and got me into the smoothie habit. The VERSA is definitely a step up, and my Ninja is now in storage. The Ninja's 450 watt motor is reasonably powerful, but the VERSA's 1400 watt motor is a beast. When I put fibrous vegetables like carrots or kale in the Ninja, it makes a thick puree. It's definitely drinkable, but it's got a lot of texture. Putting these ingredients in the VERSA produces a completely smooth liquid. I sometimes put chia seeds in my smoothies. With the Ninja, a lot of the seeds survive and are floating in the final product. With the VERSA, they disappear. The Ninja has no speed control, and can only be pulsed; the only way to adjust the end result is by pulsing longer or shorter. Because the manufacturer recommends doing only 15-second pulses, leaning on it for several minutes to make something really smooth seems risky. But it's great for quickly chopping an onion or making salsa, and most smoothies are done in thirty seconds. The VERSA has a simple variable speed control dial. Even at the low end it's powerful, and at the high end, it's very loud and whips the contents into a frenzy. You can leave it on for several minutes and not worry. I tried to make tahini using only sesame seeds in my food processor, the Ninja, and the VERSA. The food processor burned itself out and shut off before making a dent in it because the blades just spun beneath the coarsely ground seeds which stuck to the sides. The Ninja did a better job, but even with its multiple blades it wouldn't pull the seeds in enough to turn them into butter. I stopped trying for fear I'd just ruin it. I'd like to say the VERSA made short work of it, but it didn't. I had to repeatedly use the pusher tool (which fits nicely through the hole in the top and won't reach the blades) to press the seeds into the blades, and the motor eventually shut itself off. After a few minutes I continued, and eventually I had tahini. A very tough job, but only the VERSA could finish it. The VERSA has three special settings, and I've tried two. One allows you to push a button to make a smoothie, and it automatically changes speed to allow contents to settle into the blades before blending them, and shuts itself off when it imagines the smoothie is done. It works well with ingredients that will blend fairly easily, but with ice cubes or carrot chunks, you may have to turn it back on to finish the job. It also has a setting to make soup. You place the ingredients in, press the button, and walk away while it howls. After about four or five minutes, hot soup! Apparently the speed of the blades alone heats it up. I found if the ingredients are already hot when added, they get even hotter--extremely so. There are soups that can't be made properly just by blending raw ingredients and heating them quickly, but it's very nice to be able to toss some broccoli, seasonings, stock, and cream into the VERSA, push a button, and have hot soup in five minutes. Unlike my blender, which unscrews at the bottom to remove the blade for easy cleaning, neither the bottom nor the blades of the VERSA are removable. The best way to clean it is to put some soapy water inside and turn it on for ten seconds. I've had no trouble. The appliance is heavy and seems built to last. With the carafe it fits under my kitchen cabinets. The carafe is made of thick BPA-free plastic, and holds up to 64 ounces. In summary, if all you need to do is make smoothies from typical ingredients--frozen berries, bananas, juice--the Ninja does a great job, and will make hummus, salsa, etc. nicely for a reasonable price. If your horizons are a little broader and you want something that will do a great job on almost anything, the VERSA is a well-designed workhorse. UPDATE: The rubber seal around the carafe top on my VERSA became loose very quickly after I received it. It continued to work, but I could see it was only a matter of time before it broke and it didn't seem like it was supposed to be that way. I called Oster and they sent me a replacement under warranty, and it works perfectly--the first one must have been defective. SECOND UPDATE: After about eight months the replacement rubber gasket has stretched just like the first one. It's apparently a design defect. Too bad, although everything else works very well.