The Hamilton Beach Power Elite Multi-Function Blender is a very simple full-size blender. Although it uses a glass jar, the rest of the build is made from plastic which feels prone to wear and tear. While it's good for recipes like soup and smoothies, it struggles with thicker blends and hard ingredients. However, its removable blades make it very easy to clean by hand.
Our Verdict
The Hamilton Beach Power Elite is decent for multi-purpose use. It's a solid choice for pureed recipes like soups and smoothies, since it can process fibrous ingredients like kale and fruit into a mostly smooth blend. However, it's not very powerful and has limited speed settings. It's not easy to use for mixes like nut butter and hummus and isn't good for ice crushing. It's also not very sturdy. Still, it's easy to clean and dishwasher-safe.
- Hot blends.
- Jar, lid, and blade assembly are all dishwasher-safe.
- Not good for nut butter.
- Disappointing, plasticky build quality.
- Few speed settings.
The Hamilton Beach Power Elite Multi-Function Blender is good for single-serve smoothies. It does an excellent job of processing fibrous smoothie additions like fruit and leafy greens. It takes a little longer than some blenders and doesn't make a perfectly smooth blend, but most people should be very happy with the results. However, it struggles to crush ice cubes, so it's not ideal if you like a lot of ice or chunks of frozen fruit in your drink. It doesn't have a good build quality, but its removable blades help make it easy to clean by hand.
- Fantastic for blending fibrous ingredients.
- Jar, lid, and blade assembly are all dishwasher-safe.
- Bad at ice crushing.
- Disappointing, plasticky build quality.
The Hamilton Beach Power Elite Multi-Function is decent for multiple servings of smoothies. It makes a very smooth blend with common smoothie ingredients like blueberries and kale. It's also very easy to clean by hand. However, it has a 40oz capacity, which is on the small side if you need to serve a crowd. It's not good at crushing ice, so it's not well-suited if you like your smoothies with lots of ice.
- Fantastic for blending fibrous ingredients.
- Jar, lid, and blade assembly are all dishwasher-safe.
- Bad at ice crushing.
- Disappointing, plasticky build quality.
The Hamilton Beach Power Elite Multi-Function Blender is bad for ice crushing. Even if you use about six ice cubes at once, which is a small batch for a full-size blender, it struggles to crush them all after several minutes of blending. It has low and high pulse settings that you can use for ice crushing, but the ingredients usually get stuck after a couple of pulses. It's also not very well-built, which isn't good if you frequently use your blender for hard ingredients like ice.
- Jar, lid, and blade assembly are all dishwasher-safe.
- Bad at ice crushing.
- Disappointing, plasticky build quality.
The Hamilton Beach Power Elite Multi-Function Blender is great for soups. You can use it to blend hot ingredients, and it makes a very smooth blend with fibrous vegetables like broccoli and kale. It's easy to clean by hand and or in the dishwasher. However, it has a somewhat small 40oz capacity, so it might not fit your favorite soup recipe in a single batch. Some blenders can make an even smoother blend with fibrous additions more quickly.
- Fantastic for blending fibrous ingredients.
- Hot blends.
- Jar, lid, and blade assembly are all dishwasher-safe.
- Disappointing, plasticky build quality.
The Hamilton Beach Power Elite is disappointing for professional use. It has a plasticky, cheap-feeling build quality, so it may not stand up to daily use. It performs best with liquidy recipes like smoothies and soups, since it can smoothly blend fibrous ingredients. However, it really struggles with more difficult blends like nut butter and ice crushing. It only has a couple of speed settings, so you can't really adapt the speed for different recipes.
- Fantastic for blending fibrous ingredients.
- Jar, lid, and blade assembly are all dishwasher-safe.
- Not good for nut butter.
- Disappointing, plasticky build quality.
- Few speed settings.
Changelog
- Updated Jan 11, 2024: Made a note that the recently-reviewed Hamilton Beach makes less noise when it's running.
- Updated Jan 09, 2024: We've changed the result for 'Two-Part Lid' to 'Yes' because the lid does allow you to add ingredients mid-blend. Also changed the result for 'Power' from 700 to 444 watts. 700 watts is the blender's peak motor power, but 444 watts is more representative of the power it draws continuously.
- Updated Jan 04, 2024: Compared the build quality to the Black+Decker Quiet Blender with Cyclone Glass Jar's.
- Updated May 11, 2023: Updated text to match Test Bench 1.0.
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Differences Between Sizes And Variants
The Hamilton Beach Power Elite Multi-Function Blender also comes in another variant called the Hamilton Beach 58149C Power Elite Blender with Chopper. This variant includes a 3-cup chopper jar for chopping ingredients such as tomatoes for salsa. However, we tested the standalone model, and you can see its label here.
If you come across another variant of the Power Elite blender or if your unit is different, please let us know in the forums below, and we'll update the review if needed.
Popular Blender Comparisons
The Hamilton Beach Power Elite Multi-Function is a small full-size blender. It's a good blender for recipes like smoothies and soups since it's excellent at processing fibrous ingredients like kale. However, it really struggles with more difficult jobs like making nut butter or ice crushing. It has a plasticky build quality as well.
Check out our recommendations for the best blenders, the best blenders for smoothies, and the best blenders for ice crushing.
The Oster Master Series Blender with Texture Select Settings is better than the Hamilton Beach Power Elite Multi-Function. The Oster is sturdier and comes with a 24oz personal jar in addition to its 48oz main jar. It's much more versatile since it can handle tougher blending tasks like crushing ice or making nut butter. However, the Hamilton Beach makes a smoother blend with fibrous ingredients in recipes like smoothies and soups.
The Ninja DUO is a better full-size blender than the Hamilton Beach Power Elite Multi-Function. The Ninja outperforms the Hamilton Beach in pretty much every way as it has a better build quality, better blending performance, comes with a personal jar, and offers more speed settings. However, the Hamilton Beach can be used for hot blending. It's quieter and easier to clean by hand.
The Vitamix 5200 is better than the Hamilton Beach Power Elite Multi-Function. The Vitamix has a significantly better build quality and a better overall performance, especially for tougher tasks like making nut butter and crushing ice.
The KitchenAid K400 is a better full-size blender than the Hamilton Beach Power Elite Multi-Function. The KitchenAid has a much better build quality and overall performance. It can also hot blend and has a bigger capacity.
The Ninja Foodi Cold & Hot Blender is a significantly better full-size blender than the Hamilton Beach Power Elite Multi-Function. The Ninja has a much better build quality and performs better when processing fibrous ingredients, crushing ice, and making nut butter. It can also warm up room-temperature ingredients.
The KitchenAid K150 is better than the Hamilton Beach Power Elite Multi-Function. The KitchenAid is better built and has better performance, especially for tough jobs like crushing ice cubes and making nut butter. It's much quieter when it's running as well.
The Vitamix Explorian E310 is a better blender than the Hamilton Beach Power Elite Multi-Function. It has a much better build quality and a significantly better performance, especially for tough tasks like making nut butter and crushing ice.
The Black+Decker Quiet Blender with Cyclone Glass Jar is better than the Hamilton Beach Power Elite Multi-Function for most purposes. Both come with glass main jars, but the Black+Decker has a better build quality and offers a more versatile performance since it can crush ice and make smooth, spreadable nut butter. It's also significantly quieter.
The Magic Bullet Combo Blender is better than the Hamilton Beach Power Elite Multi-Function for most uses. The Magic Bullet has a better build quality and comes with a 15oz personal jar as well as a 48oz main jar. There are fewer restrictions on how you use the Hamilton Beach, since it can crush ice and process dry ingredients without liquid in the jar, but it's not very good at crushing ice or making nut butter.
The Magic Bullet Combo Blender is better than the Hamilton Beach Power Elite Multi-Function for most uses. The Magic Bullet has a better build quality and comes with a 15oz personal jar as well as a 48oz main jar. There are fewer restrictions on how you use the Hamilton Beach since it can crush ice and process dry ingredients without liquid in the jar, but it's not very good at crushing ice or making nut butter.
Test Results
The Hamilton Beach Power Elite Blender is somewhat bulky. It's not very heavy, and it shouldn't take up too much room on your countertop. You can also store it in your cupboard if you take off its lid and jar to store separately.
This blender has a disappointing build quality. Although the jar is made from thick glass, the rest is plastic. The motor body's plastic feels especially thin and not very durable. It's prone to showing wear and tear in places, such as where the jar docks onto the base. The transmission, lid, and collar are all plastic, too. If you're looking for a similar blender with a better build quality, consider the Black+Decker Quiet Blender with Cyclone Glass Jar.
The jar has a 40oz capacity, which is quite small for a full-size blender, but still enough for a couple of smoothies at once.
The jar is made of glass, which you might find is less prone to scratching and discoloration than plastic. It's dishwasher-safe along with the lid.
This blender four blades in an s-shape, with a pair that stick straight up. The blade assembly is removable, which is somewhat unusual for a full-size blender and makes it easier to clean. The blade assembly is dishwasher-safe, but shouldn't be cleaned with the 'sanitize' mode.
The jar's lid is made from plastic. It has a spout so that you can pour out the contents from the jar. You can also use it to pour food into the blender while it's running. There's a vent opening on the lid too so you can safely blend hot food.
The Hamilton Beach Power Elite Blender has a fairly short cable, but it shouldn't be too much of a problem if you're using a countertop outlet. It also has a stowaway compartment so that you can hide it when not in use.
It's excellent for small batches of fibrous ingredients. It takes longer to blend something like a single-serve smoothie than comparable blenders like the Oster Pro 1200. Still, it takes less than five minutes to make a mostly smooth puree with ingredients like kale. You can still see some fibers in the final product, but it's not grainy.
It's amazing for processing fibrous ingredients at full capacity. Similar to a smaller batch, it takes a while to blend the ingredients compared other full-size blenders like the Hamilton Beach Professional Quiet Blender. In the end, it makes a mostly smooth puree, with some fibers still visible but no big grains or unprocessed bits. It doesn't achieve the perfectly smooth puree that some blenders can, however.
The Hamilton Beach Power Elite isn't suitable for ice crushing. Even if you work with only six ice cubes at once, you can only pulse for a few seconds before the mixtures jams. Stirring with a spatula helps a bit, but a lot of ice builds up around the blades and even after a few minutes of pulsing and stirring, about half the ice cubes remain uncrushed.
It's poor for nut butter. Using the Dice, Chop, Salsa button, which is a lower-speed pulse mode, it's able to crush nuts like almonds into rough powder. However, the motor isn't very powerful and the blender struggles to pull the ingredients into a vortex. It takes a lot of time and manipulation (like shaking the jar and removing the lid to stir) before the ingredients start to flow instead of accumulating along the jar walls. At best it makes passable but dry and crunchy nut butter. The KitchenAid K150 has a similar motor power and is easier to use for nut butter, partly because it's possible to blend at a slower speed.
It's not particularly loud for a full-size blender. However, like almost all blenders, the noise will still be irritating after a few minutes of blending. If you want a quieter blender, the Hamilton Beach Wave Crusher Multi-Function is similar and makes less noise.
This blender has a small range of speed settings. There's not a huge difference between the lowest and highest settings, so you can't slowly ramp up the speed or use a low setting for thicker mixtures or to avoid over-blending. Still, the fastest speed is quick enough to make smooth soups and smoothies with fibrous ingredients.
The Hamilton Beach Power Elite Blender has five buttons. Although the manufacturer advertises it as having 12 modes, it's really four modes, with each mode suggested for three different uses. There are only two speed presets for manual blending, and both are pretty quick, so you can't make small speed adjustments. However, the pulse modes pulse continuously after the button is pushed once, which you might prefer to buttons that you need to hold down constantly or press repeatedly.
- MIX/MILKSHAKE/EASYCLEAN: Low-speed continuous blending
- PUREE/SMOOTHIE/ICY DRINK: High-speed continuous blending
- DICE/CHOP/SALSA: Low-speed pulse mode
- GRIND/CRUSH ICE/GRATE: High-speed pulse mode
This blender is very easy to clean. Running the blender with soap and water in the jar helps remove sticky residue from the sides of the jar and the blades. The blade assembly can be removed from the jar, so you don't need to worry about reaching into the bottom of the jar to clean them.