Magic Bullet Portable Blender  Blender Review

The Magic Bullet Portable Blender is a small, light blender. It's a few inches shorter than the battery-powered Ninja Blast and easily fits into bags and cupboards.

The blender is very well-built. While it's entirely made of plastic except for the blades, it feels sturdy. There are small feet under the motor base to help keep it from moving around while it's running. The spout lid is spring-loaded and has a button that you push to open it. The 'Flavor Infuser' is removable and fits into the jar under the lid. The lid locks closed and has a handle to make it easier to carry the blender around. The power button on the motor base has an LED light that indicates different statuses. It's also very easy to assemble.

The blender's main jar has a 16-ounce overall capacity but a maximum fill line at just 12 ounces, so its capacity is slightly smaller than that of other portable blenders like the Ninja Blast or PopBabies Portable Blender. You can purchase a bigger 20oz jar separately from the manufacturer, or you can go for the nutribullet Portable, which is a very similar blender that comes with a 20oz jar.

The jar and lid are both made of dishwasher-safe plastic.

This blender has four blades that are fixed onto the motor base. Because of that, they aren't dishwasher-safe, and the manufacturer recommends wiping them with a damp cloth. The blades are sharp, so you must be careful not to cut yourself.

The lid is easy to attach and remove from the jar. The spout cover opens with the push of a button, so you can easily drink from the jar on the go. The lid also has a handle for easier carrying or attaching to a bag or backpack.

It comes with a USB-C cable that plugs into the motor base for charging. There's no place to stow it when not in use, but you can detach the cable. The manufacturer advertises that a fully charged battery provides 15 blending cycles that last 20 seconds each.

• Magic Bullet Portable Blender motor base
• 16oz blending jar
• 'Sip & Carry' lid
• Flavor infuser
• USB-A to USB-C charging cable
• User manual, Quick Start guide, and recipe pamphlet

The Magic Bullet Portable Blender is okay for blending small batches of fibrous ingredients. To get the best results, you have to shake the jar and remove the lid to scrape the walls of the jar with a spatula. It's not the fastest blender, either. Still, it makes a decently smooth puree with fibrous ingredients like kale and fruits. Some unprocessed bits are left over, but it's not extremely grainy. Still, if you want a blender that makes a smoother blend, you might prefer the Ninja Blast Max BC251.

This blender's jar can only fit a small batch of about 12 ounces, so it performs the same way for small batches and at full capacity. The results and scores here are identical to the fibrous ingredients (small batches) results and scores.

The Magic Bullet Portable Blender isn't a good ice crusher, which is pretty normal for a portable blender. You have to shake the jar constantly and stop to scrape the sides of the jar for the best results. Even with all that effort, it crushes ice inconsistently, so you get some crushed ice and big, unprocessed chunks. If you only use a couple of ice cubes at once, it makes more uniform crushed ice, although you still have to shake the jar a lot, so it's still not an easy process. You can see how it performs with two ice cubes in the jar here and see a photo of the results here.

It's not good for making nut butter, but it's possible if you use only one cup of nuts at once and don't mind putting in quite a bit of effort. You must shake, knock, or scrape the jar constantly to keep the ingredients moving, which the blades can't manage without help. All the stirring and scraping makes a mess around the blender, and eventually, it overheats, preventing you from blending until it cools. You can leave the spout lid open to help ventilate, but it's not intended for that purpose and ends up making more of a mess. Ultimately, the blender makes a dry, crunchy nut butter that isn't easy to spread.

Like most portable blenders, it's quiet. Since it's not very powerful, it's significantly less noisy than plug-in options like the NutriBullet Pro 900.

Its blending speed is quite fast, which is helpful for smoothly blending fibrous ingredients. There's only one speed setting, so you can't slowly ramp up the speed or use a lower speed to avoid over-blending.

The controls consist of one button that you press to start a 20-second cycle. You can push it again to stop a cycle early, which you can do if you want to pulse to break up bigger chunks. The button has a ring of six LEDs that light up in different colors depending on the blender's status. One LED flashes red when the battery is low. When charging, the LEDs will light up one after the other in blue, with all six LEDs illuminated when fully charged. The light ring will flash red to indicate 'too many blends,' which means you've exceeded the limit of nine blending cycles in six minutes. The LED lights will go solid red when the blender has overheated.

It's fairly easy to clean. You can use a sponge to clean the inside of the jar and the underside of the lid. The blades are more difficult since they're fixed to the motor base, which you can't immerse in water. You must use a brush or sponge to clean them, especially the rim where the jar fits, which can be time-consuming.