Taking a look at the KitchenAid 5-Speed Diamond Blender

Hi. I'm Katie Pilkington for CNET and I'm standing next to the KitchenAid 5-Speed Diamond Blender. This is a really nice blender. It retails for $149 on the company's website, which you may think is a lot of money to spend for a blender and you would be correct. So the real question is why would you spend a $150 on a blender if you don't need to? There are a lot of nice features about the KitchenAid that have kind of brought me over on to its side such as the 60 ounce pitcher which is really generous. And the interface is really easy to use. They don't overcomplicate things with this blender. It's easy to figure out exactly what setting you need to use depending on what you're putting in to the blender. And we definitely put it through its phases in our testing. We tested everything from ice crushing, to smoothies, to making almond flour, and then turning that almond flour into almond butter. And I was really impressed and honestly quite surprised that the KitchenAid performed on par with some of the more expensive blenders like the Vitamix, and the Ninja, and the Bravo. This isn't an especially large blender in terms of the width that it will take up on your countertop but it is taller and this has lot to do with the shape of the pitcher. We were originally skeptical about this shape because it's kind of old-fashiony and that's KitchenAid's hallmark in a lot of ways. Its old timing kind of appliances that look like something your grandma used to have. But the way the shape of this blender works is that it's very narrow at the bottom which gives the blades full coverage preventing things from getting stuck. Now certainly because there are squared corners, you will get some food particles that are wedged under the blades and may not get blended. But it was far, far less than I expected. So if a $150 for a blender doesn't frighten you off as a sticker price, the KitchenAid would be a really great choice and we were really happy with it. If you have KitchenAid mixers or a big fan of KitchenAid products, I don't think you could go wrong adding this to your line of appliances. But if you're looking for something more budget-friendly, the Hamilton Beach Smoothie Smart is also a really excellent choice. For CNET, with the KitchenAid 5-Speed Diamond Blender, I'm Katie Pilkington.