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- Powerful blending for its size
- Great price
- Truly leakproof
- Struggles with some foods
- Blade attached to motorised base
- Bulky to carry around
The Nutribullet Portable Blender combines the usefulness of a full-size, plug-in blender with the convenience of being able to charge-and-go. Being able to whizz up smoothies, protein shakes and iced lattes in an instant, whether you’re at the gym, in the office or at a tank museum, can be handy – if that’s your thing.
This cylindrical personal-sized blender is charged using a USB-C cable and the manufacturers say it can blend ice, frozen fruit, nuts and more, either at home or on the road. But as a compact, portable blender, is it really powerful enough to be useful for a range of blending tasks? Or should you save your cash for a higher powered countertop appliance that can do it all? With a market saturated with blender brands, is the Nutribullet Portable Blender the one for you?
Whether you are planning on blitzing up mocktails and mojitos for cocktail hour with the girls, or want to add more vitamins to your diet with healthy green post-gym smoothies, it’s important to know if a blender will be up to the job. I tested the Nutribullet Portable Blender using a range of ingredients and pushed it to its limits to see if this blender is worth your hard earned cash. Read on to see how I got on.
What do you get for the money?
From the super powerful countertop varieties to handheld battery blenders and everything in between, when it comes to choosing something to make smoothies you’re spoilt for choice. But prices vary wildly: from cheap and cheerful £20 versions, to mid-range models at around £150 and things like the Vitamix A35000i commanding upwards of £700, it is hard to know what you really need to spend.
Given this model has an RRP of £40, you wouldn’t expect it to blast its way through tough-to-blend ingredients or deliver perfectly smooth results. The motor is only 100W – though Nutribullet claim it can work through ice, frozen fruit and nuts – and it has a capacity of 475ml. The body of the blender doubles as a lidded cup, with the motorised base forming the bottom. The blades are housed as part of the base and are made from stainless steel.
The big selling point of this blender is of course its portability; you can charge up the blender and be ready to go with no need for a cord or plug. There are no extra accessories included in the Nutribullet Portable Blender; what you see is what you get.
What’s good about it?
I’ll admit I was sceptical about the Nutribullet Portable’s abilities. My standard Nutribullet sometimes doesn’t cope with ice or nuts, but this one gamely ripped through a sizeable block of ice cubes within the 20 second pre-set blend function, and a handful of cashews were blended dry to a coarse powder within 10 minutes. It did a lovely job of making a pesto with pine nuts, garlic and kale – should you be minded to knock up a pesto on the hop – and while you shouldn’t expect silky smooth results when dealing with nuts it can easily whizz up loose salsas and sauces.
With just one button, using the blender could hardly be easier. Once charged, press once for a 20 second blending cycle which should be enough for most tasks. If there’s an issue, the dial flashes to help you troubleshoot with the manual.
It’s also completely leakproof. Chuck this in your bag without fear – we gave it a real throw about with no problems.
Cleaning is fine: I’d suggest whizzing up a solution of water and detergent to get the worst off, then popping the cup and lid in the dishwasher – both are also easy to wash by hand.
What could be better?
For the price and convenience this is an impressive little machine. But at 100W it’s not without its limits; frozen fruit does not fare well unless liquid is added, and as we’ve mentioned you won’t be able to create your own nut milks or smooth dips and sauces without the aid of a fine sieve or muslin.
The fact the blade doesn’t come away from the base unit for cleaning is understandable, but when making viscous or oil-based foods it’s annoying not to be able to submerge the blades for cleaning.
While Nutribullet claims it can run 15 blending cycles on a full charge, in my testing it only managed six. Granted it depends a little bit on the intensity of the workload, but this is still a sizable shortfall.
Should you buy the Nutribullet Portable Blender?
If you’re after something to chuck in your gym bag, or take to hotels when travelling to make your morning drinks then this is a great tool for the job. You’ll save money on ready-made health drinks and fancy iced coffees and feel all the better for it too, given you give yourself time to organise the ingredients beforehand. But if you’re after something to get a bit more creative with in the kitchen then there are more suitable machines out there for you. Try the ProCook Blender and Smoothie Maker for serious blending power without an eye-watering price tag, or consider the Nutribullet Magic Bullet instead.
