I always used to keep my blenders in a cabinet, but not this one. Way too beautiful to hide! I used to own a smoothie restaurant, so I wanted a blender that would take the punishment I will give it. The Ikon crushes ice with less noise than any other blender I've used. The appearance and the quality is well worth the price.

I bought this blender and at first I thought that it could not do a smoothie the way I liked it. But when I finally used the smoothie option it worked great. I really load it down with at least 3 cups of frozen fruit, smoothie mix, a cup of milk and water to create the desired thickness.As for blending vegetables into soup or puree it is not chunky at all.I even bought a Blendtec from a live presintation and brought it back the next day because it had a hard time blending my ingredience. When the Blendtec was finished the smoothie was way to thin and had an awful consistancy.I am so glad that I decided to stay with this blender, it definatley has a better bang for it's buck and looks very sleek sitting on my counter top.

This is a very nice looking machine and it runs fairly quietly. It has been ok making smoothies, but when I tried to puree a vegetable soup it left it rather chunky. Overall, it's fine, but I was hoping for a little more "oomph" for the price!