Ratings: Ease of Use, Performance: 23/25, Look & Feel: 22/25, Features 23/25, How much I enjoy 25/25
Total: 93/100
Who hasn’t seen that infomercial on the Magic Bullet blender that can make all those great looking treats and conveniently cooks in as well as drink from the cups. Well if you haven’t your going to bed early or don’t own a television.
The Magic Bullet has gotten rave reviews and even an award or two. The Infomercial of the Year is one that comes readily to the curious from the 15th Annual Electronics Retailing Association Conference. With over three million Magic Bullets sold to date where can the company go now? On the Go.
The Magic Bullet is a great and convenient blender using the smaller cups and containers that you can not only blend, whip, chop and puree in but you can cook, store, eat and drink out of them as well. The lids come in handy for storing or using in the refrigerator such as the grated cheese top with the small holes for shaking out some of that grated Parmesan cheese.
Now get all that convenient smaller blending power for your smoothies, iced coffee drinks and just about anything else you can do in the Magic Bullet but everywhere you go. The Magic Bullet To Go is the great multifunction Magic Bullet with a convenient battery base, the powerful Magic Bullet blender base and all those cups, mugs and lids.
The Magic Bullet To Go comes with the four party mugs with their drinking rings called Comfort Drink Rings. There is the tall cup and short cup for blending, mixing, chopping and grinding all your Magic Bullet concoctions. The package also comes with four separate lids; two storage lids and two with holes in them for shaker use and cooking.
The Magic Bullet To Go also comes with the Magic Bullet Blender and lid for larger blending recipes. The two blade units are the cross blade and the flat blade that are for your various uses of blending that I will get into in a minute. The battery, base and charger/power adapter are the electrical components of the Magic Bullet To Go and are the parts that are not dishwasher safe. All the cups, rings and blades are dishwasher safe and made of plastic with some stainless steel parts in the blade units.
The charger works easily by setting the charger on the battery unit by lining up two red dots with the battery unit dot that says charge near it and turning clockwise. You don’t have to worry about turning either the charger or the base unit in the wrong direction as they both go on the same way but can’t be turned in the wrong direction. The charger plugs into a wall outlet and it takes about two hours to fully charge the battery.
Once the battery is plugged in a red light will come on and turn to green when it is fully charged. You take off the charger by unplugging it and turning it counter clockwise and lifting up. The base then goes onto the battery by lining up the two red dots with the charge dot being covered up by a lip around the base blender unit. Simply twist the base onto the battery unit and your ready to blend, mix, chop, whatever.
The cups and mugs all have threads for the lids and the blade units. The blade units come in two designs; the flat blade is for hard grinding and whipping and the cross blade is for everything else. Spices, coffee and other hard and dry things need to be ground and cream needs the whipping or flat blade and just about everything else you do with the Magic Bullet To Go will be done with the cross blade.
The recipes you see on the infomercial for the Magic Bullet are also used in the Magic Bullet To Go. The Magic Bullet To Go comes with a handy stand up recipe book that gives some simple to follow directions and a good assortment of recipes with all the ones from the infomercial.
The smoothies are great and very easy to prepare, just drop a bunch of frozen fruit into the cup and some fruit juice or even kool aid and pop on the cross blade. Turn the blender cup over and line up the three small tabs on the blade part with the blender base and push down slightly.
When you just push down on the cup the motor will turn on and if you pull back up it will shut off for a quick blend action. For a sustained blending you simply turn the cup and it will snap into place and run as long as there is power or until the blades jam. When using frozen fruit or ice cubes I found that using the quick chopping as suggested in the recipe book works well.
You do the chopping and blending in short bursts so that the fruit or ice cubes have a chance to move around and get ground up. If the blade jams the unit simply stops and does not continue until the blade unit and cup is removed from the base and put on again, no burnt out motor here.
The recipes are easy to follow and using the cup to cook in is very nice, saving you on dishes for smaller meals and quick snacks. I really like the Alfredo sauce but there are all kinds of small recipes that this is handy for. I also tried out several recipes as seen on TV and they all worked out very well.
The battery base does take about two hours to charge; when I first received the unit it was completely dead, barely turning the blades when I first assembled it and it took a little over two hours and ten minutes to charge fully. I have used it since and not let it go completely dead and in two hours the unit has always been charged.
The battery does not have the same power as a corded model would but it does have enough power to blend a smoothie with frozen fruit or ice cubes for a great frozen coffee drink. You just have to use some common sense and not try to crush up all the ice in one continuous blend. I have found that smaller ice cubes help a lot and also make for a quicker drink. The Martha Stewart line has these great ice cube trays that are perfect for this at Kmart.
I have found that you can make about eight smoothies using the small ice cubes or several recipe concoctions. As a test I made two spice seasoning recipes, ground a half wedge of Parmesan cheese, made 2 iced coffee drinks, ground 3 cups of coffee beans, made one whipped cream desert and one butter (failed whipped cream desert).
I found out you can do all of these recipes on one charge and that to make a whipped cream you need very cold whipping cream or you get butter instead. I suggest popping the whipping cream in the freezer for an hour before attempting whipped cream.
The battery will also last for eight frozen drinks or smoothies as long as you are using crushed ice or smaller iced cubes. It does take a lot out of the battery if you are trying to use the regular one inch cube from the cheap ice cube trays.
In all I am very pleased with the Magic Bullet To Go and would recommend it for anyone who wants the great Magic Bullet set but wants the portability and convenience of taking the set to the tailgating party, camping, fishing or anywhere.
I highly recommend the Magic Bullet To Go as a convenient and portable blender. Checking the website you can get both the Magic Bullet To Go and the original Magic Bullet so you have the power and strength of the corded Magic Bullet and the convenience of the portable Magic Bullet To Go all for one great price. I know I sound like a commercial but hey, it’s my article.
