Why You Can Trust CNET Omega Juice Cube juicer review: Juice Cube solves its own storage puzzle
Place this juicer's parts inside itself to save kitchen counter space.
Thanks to a compact design which packs away neatly for storage, the $350 (converting roughly to £280 in the UK or AU$470 in Australia) Omega Juice Cube removes one huge hassle to juicing at home. That obstalce is how to squeeze a juicer into your kitchen where it won't be an eyesore. The Juice Cube is powerful too, and will easily crush just about any type of produce you throw at it.
The Good
The Bad
The Bottom Line
Still, there are some tradeoffs to the Omega Juice Cube's unique approach to juicing. To take advantage of the machine's space-saving design, you must assemble and break down its numerous parts each juicing session. The Juice Cube also yields less juice and is a lot heavier than its standard horizontal juicer sibling, the $300 Omega J8006 Nutrition Center, despite its transformable shape.
Design and features
With sides that are all roughly 10.3 inches long (10.24 inches x 10.43 inches x 10.24, inches), the Omega Juice Cube's appearance definitely matches its name. Rounded corners help disguise the juicer's true size, which is slightly larger than your average 4-slice toaster.
The Juice Cube can hold all its parts inside its body when not in use.
Nothing can mask how heavy the Juice Cube is though. It tips the scale at a whopping 20 pounds (roughly 9 kilograms). That's a full 7 pounds heavier than the Omega J8006, a product I would never classify as lightweight.
Before you can start juicing, you'll need to unpack all the Juice Cube's parts and assemble them. It's a task that at first demands some practice and a bit of patience. Including the clear front cover and plastic containers for juice as well as waste pulp, there are nine components you'll have to contend with. That's four more pieces to keep track of compared with the less complex Omega J8006.
When assembled, the Juice Cube looks like a normal horizontal slow juicer.
Once properly built, the Omega Juice Cube has parts you should recognize if you've owned a horizontal juicer before. There's a hopper and vertical chute to accept food. This feeds into a large auger that slowly spins to smash liquid juice from produce pulp. Juice then collects inside a container below while fibrous pulp is pushed to the side to land in another container.
Put extra parts in this tray on the back of the juicer.
The Juice Cube's robust motor (2-horsepower equivalent) has just one speed unless you count a reverse gear. The 200-watt electric engine is designed to power through a wide range of produce, including soft items such as oranges and other citrus, harder fruits and vegetables like apples and pears, to tough ingredients such as carrots, celery and wheatgrass.
Using the Juice Cube
No matter what ingredients I fed down its tube shoot, the Juice Cube and its motor never clogged. That's a lot more than I can say for other juicers, specifically the VonShef Premium Slow Masticating Juicer and Hurom H-AA Slow Juicer.
This juicer handled citrus well, but not exceptionally so.
That said, on my tests the Juice Cube managed to pull less liquid from fruit and veggies compared with its traditional Omega J8006 juicer sibling. With oranges, the Juice Cube managed a 66 percent extraction percentage (based on amount of ingredients, remaining pulp and extracted juice). It's lower than the Omega J8006's score of 76.8 percent and more in line with centrifugal juicers such as the Hamilton Beach 67601A (71.8 percent) and Breville JE98XL Juice Fountain Plus (66.4 percent).
Hard produce and greens didn't phase the Juice Cube at all.
Leafy greens weren't a problem for the Juice Cube, though. It notched a respectable average extraction percentage of 37 percent with kale. The score may not match the Omega J8006's excellent 44.2 percent kale result, but it's a close second. Other juicers turned in higher kale numbers including the Breville JE200XL (41.2 percent) and the Black and Decker JE2400BD, but were far less consistent from run to run.
Pour yourself a glass of fresh juice.
Conclusion
The $350 Omega Juice Cube solves the problem of how to store yet another multi-piece appliance in the kitchen. That's a big selling point to potential customers considering casual juicing, but not needing a monster eating up counter space.
Die-hard juice makers will be better served by the $300 Omega J8006 (roughly £240, AU$400) which performs better with the plus of costing $50 less. If you're a on a tight budget but you appreciate fresh juice, check out the $80 (roughly £65, AU$110) Hamilton Beach 67601A Juice Extractor.