Blendtec versus Vitamix?

[Momit]

I've been stalking the Vitamix for some time but haven't bought one yet. Today at Costco they were demo-ing the Blendtec and I really liked it. The guy made a few good selling points - Vitamix copied their design and had to pay a multi million dollar fine, Blendtec has a shorter container standard, Blendtec has the same container for wet and dry, Blendtec doesn't need a tamper, Blendtec has 1 more year warranty (7 vs. 8 I believe?). And the price is $329 for the version with pre-sets.

Why would I want the Vitamix over the Blendtec? I had barely even heard of Blendtec before today and now I'm very tempted.

[pb&j]

I have no personal experience with Blendtec, but I've known about them for ages because of the "Will It Blend?" video series.

http://www.willitblend.com

[MelissaTC]

I have a Blendtec and love it. Bought it at Costco. I don't think you can go wrong with either.

[Aishe]

I found this helpful when I was trying to decide between the two.

http://www.incrediblesmoothies.com/b...x-vs-blendtec/

I ended up with a Vitamix, but I'm sure I would have been happy with a Blendtec. I think it really comes down to personal preference on the design and features.

[baymom]

I have the Blendtec and my Mom has the Vitamix, so I know both pretty well. They, IMO, are very comparable and you couldn't go wrong with either one. It's one of the most used appliances in my kitchen.

[wellyes]

I think they're probably about the same. We got a vitamix due to their track record - DH remembers his from his 80s childhood. But I'd be happy with a Blendtec too I bet.

The only thing to watch out for with Blendtec is that they have an incredible social media staff. Will It Blend is famous for being viral marketing done really well. But they've also been accused of putting out a variety of blender review and green smoothie websites where their sponsorship is not revealed - all tagged to show up high in search results. Not illegal, probably more common than we all think, but still sneaky.

[crl]

This search shows some gardenweb and chowhound threads on the topic.

https://www.google.com/search?q=chow...&client=safari

Catherine

[TwinFoxes]

This search shows some gardenweb and chowhound threads on the topic.

https://www.google.com/search?q=chow...&client=safari

Catherine

I found this link to be pretty informative, especially the last poster's review of both:
http://chowhound.chow.com/topics/783590

I'd never heard of blendtec.

[vludmilla]

I have a Blendtec and love it. I like that it easily fits underneath my upper kitchen cabinets. I bought it from Costco so that I would be able to easily return it if it stopped working.

[Melaine]

I worked at Tropical Smoothie Cafe where we used Vitamix, so I was sort of leaning towards that based on my experience. However, after cursory research (would have done more if I hadn't been so experienced with the VM from work) I basically looked for the best price on either model and ended up with the vitamix.

The things I hear mentioned that I would look at/consider are:
1) height....would be nice to fit under cabinet. Not a dealbreaker for me, but I do see it as a big pro for BT.
2) Warranty....are both comparable? Not sure
3) Tamper....I like having it. My experience is that if you are good at recipes, tamper may not be needed. I tend to totally wing it, dumping it random quantities. I often use the tamper and can't quite imagine not having one. YMMV of course. We didn't even have tampers at the restaurant so it obviously worked fine then.
4) Wet/dry....not sure? I haven't really planned to use it for dry stuff at this stage in my life anyway.

So for me, I just found the best deal I could and wound up with a Vitamix from craigslist and we do use it all the time and love it.