Good but loud and probably overpriced
I bought this blender a month ago, and strangly this is one of half a dozen blenders that i own (i'm in hospitality and have a few different addresses, long story)
Positive points
-the very finely controllable variable speed control, really does allow you to use the blender to do things like make salsa, or raita that require finely chopped vegies, as well as allowing you to do high speed milling.
-the built in smoothie function, ice functions and burst functions all work really well
-it is large enough for anything you might want to use it for, ie watermelon mint and chilli cocktails for 10 would be fine (delicious by the way, vodka, triple sec, spiced rum, ice)
Negative points
-the price is just excessive, spare parts are limited, and warranty is not long enough for such a high level expenditure, and to be honest from a commercial hospitality point of view its sort of a bit much for domestic and not enough for commercial
-far too loud. This really is quite a loud machine, would be good if they had designed it with an option sound hood
-it is big so you really need a bench level appliance cupboard or the like for it to be really useful as its not something you just pop in and out of the cupboard
General points (neither negative nor positive
-larger than i expected
-vacuum system seems a waste of time so far to me, maybe it might help with something that you want to store and suffers poorly from oxidisation like say pesto, but for most things it is a waste of effort and energy. It does make smoothies taste creamier and smoother, but then its a shame it doesn't fit the smoothie container, except retrospectively.
-the soup function is a bit of a joke. the machine is so loud that it is a painfully long and loud process and doesn't actually make soup but rather overheats the machine which i am sure is not good for it and makes hot blended juice. To understand the difference between 'hot blended juice' and soup... imagine you blend a pumpkin so fast that it is hot, but not that it is cooked... it is still starchy and tastes like raw pumpkin which is basically inedible, but 'looks' like soup. Now throw that hot blended juice into a pot and simmer for 15-20min, then you have soup. To be honest blending for 2min at high speed and then cooking in the microwave for a few minutes or on the stove for ten, then letting sit (to cook through), then blending again, and cooking again, would be much faster and actually taste like soup. I am alos concerned that the soup process is horrendously energy consumptive. I runs a very high wattage blender flat out for a long time, doing something that could be done in a much lower wattage microwave in much less time... my advice is that this function should simply be out-lawed as a complete waste of energy for no net gain