Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

I have been looking for a blender for a few weeks now. We have started making smoothies at home and burned up our old one. Our girls like the "Chocolate Elvis" recipe from the local smoothie place which contains peanutbutter, bananas, yogurt, ice, and milk. I guess this is really hard on blenders. I bought one at Target 2 weeks ago that had "700 watts peak power" on the box. It died in 2 days. The power spec on the bottom of the blender said 450 watts. I think that is false advertisement. I have seen this on 2 different blenders now. I have been leery of buying any blender with the little plastic teeth couplers because of all the bad reviews here on Amazon. I also wanted to stay away from anything with only 450 watts. I was in another store and saw this blender. It has a new design for where the blades couple with the motor. "Commercial quality couplers with 12 interlocking teeth....coated for quiet operation". We have had it for a few days now and have made some pretty thick smoothies. So far, so good. No burning smell like the one that was immediately apparent with the Target blender. My youngest daughter complanied that her smoothie was "too smooth". I guess she got used to the chunks of ice that our past blenders have left. Kitchenaid doesn't seem to advertise the actual power specs on their blenders. On the bottom of this one it says that it draws 6 amps. Which is about 720 watts or about 0.9 horsepower. My only complaint so far is the soft start feature. The blade starts at a slower speed then quickly increases to the speed you chose. This process still throws everything up into the lid, which is what it should prevent. It works fine though as long as you have the lid on. It also works if you start with the slowest speed and work your way up. Overall this blender seems to be well made and pretty well thought out. The cord storage on the bottom is a great feature. It has much bigger feet than the previous model. So far, I would highly recommend this blender for the person looking for a good blender in the under $200 range. Added comments: It is a year and about 300 smoothies later and we still have this blender. I would highly recommend it!!