I developed a taste for McDonald's Mocha Frappes. Unfortunately, the high calorie count of the drink made me feel guilty every time I bought one. I found a recipe on the web for making a low cal version at home, but my old cheap blender didn't have the power to easily crush ice. This one blends the frozen drink smooth in just a few seconds.
Clean up is very easy. The plastic cap on the bottom of the glass decanter screws off, there is a blade assembly with a metal plate and a rubber seal that mates to the hole in the bottom of the decanter. Another review pointed out that the threads on this cap would mate with a standard Mason jar. While true, there is a warning in the instruction manual about only using approved glass containers. There appears to be good reason for the glass to be thick and impact resistant, this thing has a good deal of power.
In addition to the "Low, Medium, High, Pulse-Low and Pulse-High" speeds there are two "Programmed Modes." One of those modes was of great interest to me, "Frozen Drinks" mode. When you start the blender in this mode it stops and reverses a couple of times at a moderate speed before fully blending on "High" for several seconds. The stops and reversals allow the ice to fall back down among the blades to ensure a good blend. The only time this didn't work well for me I found that I had not included enough liquid, thus it did not flow back down to the blades. The instruction book gives advice about how to best avoid this.
One of the impressive things about this blender is that the drive is "all metal." When I was comparing with some of the more expensive models, they had plastic parts. Now granted, modern plastics can be really tough, and the plastic parts can slightly lower the amount of noise when blending; but, I have a hard time believing that paying twice as much for a blender with plastic parts in the drive mechanism is wise.
I can't say that this blender is the right answer to everyone's needs. If you're running a restaurant, you might want something built even heavier, or with even more power, or a longer duty cycle, greater mean time between failures, or better guarantee. But, for the price, and for casual home use, I don't think you can beat the value of this blender.
Of course, I saw that some reviewers complained that the electronics failed prematurely. If that happens, I'll be sure to post an update to my review.