Vita-Mix 5200 versus Blendtec Review

Durability

Both blenders are heavy duty and do a great job at blending just about anything. While the Vita-Mix 5200 is bigger, appearing more heavy-duty and industrial, the Blendtec Total Blender holds it's own. Both blenders now come with BPA- Free Copolyester containers with Blendtec's latest upgrade to the TB-600-20 series (available via our links) so that is no longer a deciding factor. Vita-Mix has the industry's best warranty for 7 years while Blendtec offers a 3 year warranty with lifetime on the blade.

Blending performance

Both blenders easily crush ice, make nut butters, hot soup, grind seeds, and a whole lot more. While the Vita-Mix draws less power, 11.5 amps/1380 watts vs 13 amps/1560 watts, we have yet to find anything the Blendtec can blend that the Vita-Mix can not (we only do food - no i-phones, furniture, or automobiles tested). We have collected a lot of feedback from people on a raw food diet who have been completely satisfied with either.

Need More power?
---> Blendtec's NEW 20amp/2400watt Tom Dickson Extreme Blender

Vita-Mix offers complete manual control over your blending pleasure with its variable speed dial in addition to a Hi/Lo switch. It also comes with a tamper to assist in blending solid and whole (uncut) foods. This can be extremely helpful in making frozen entrees, nut butters and thick puddings. With the Blendtec, large items need to be cut-up or additional liquid is needed to get the more solid entrees to blend completely.

Blendtec presents Smart-Touch Tec-nology™ allowing you to push a button and walk away to have it run through a hands free automatic program cycle that stops when completed. Blendtec also has 'up' and 'down' buttons to manually cycle through its 10 speeds along with a 'pulse' button. The Blendtec will automatically shut off after a max of 50 seconds of continuous blending while the Vita-Mix will continue to run until manually shut off or until the thermal protection kicks in to protect it from overheating damage.

Both blenders are noisy compared to the common kitchen blender but the
Blendtec is noticeably louder

Smoothie Making

Both machines do an excellent job at turning out delicious fruit smoothies. We've used our Blendtec over several hundred times (it includes a digital usage counter) and have found that the program cycles do not blend veggie or green smoothies nearly as well as when we use the manual control buttons to blend to our desire.

One thing to note for you green smoothie lovers, the Vita-Mix 5200 consistently turns out a smoother green smoothie than the Blendtec.

Dry Grinding

The Blendtec boasts a one blade does it all - both wet and dry, while Vita-Mix recommends a separate container with a "dry blade" for dry grinding. Both blenders have no issue with grinding large amounts of seeds, such as flax or sesame although we generally prefer our dedicated coffee grinder for that job.

update:

We've been doing a fair amount of wheat berry grinding lately, as well as fielding questions about differences in how the blenders grind, so we've been using all 3 containers to see how they perform. We found that both the Blendtec and the Vita-Mix "wet" container ground the berries equally; the flour appeared to be identical in texture. The Vita-Mix "dry" container did a superior job of grinding the berries. The flour was noticeably finer with a more consistent texture.

If you plan on doing a lot of grain grinding then the Vita-Mix dry-blade container (Vita-Mix super) would be a wise investment. Or as Blendtec recommends: "To get a very fine grind and to keep the nutrients, always use the Kitchen Mill"

Clean Up

Unlike less industrial blenders, neither have an easy option to remove the bottom blade housing to access the jar for easy cleaning (you can remove the bottom of the Vita-Mix with a tool but there is no such option for the Blendtec). The 2 prong blade and smooth square design of the Blendtec container does result in somewhat easier access to remove your blended goodness and to clean it than the taller, more narrow, 4 prong blade Vita-Mix design. The Blendtec does have a hollow, open handle; if you do have stuff spill/flow into the handle it can be a chore to get it out.

The Bottom Line: