When it’s time to add a blender to your kitchen, choosing between the NutriBullet or Magic Bullet can be tough. The Magic Bullet company makes two very similar blenders that don’t appear to have big functional differences to the casual observer. Despite their topical similarities, however, these two machines are NOT created equal.
We’ll dive into what separates these two blenders in a moment. We’ll first discuss the original Magic Bullet, then we’ll talk about the NutriBullet, and then we’ll go over the differences between each blender in detail. In general, the biggest differences lie in the power and efficiency of these blenders.
While the NutriBullet can make smoothies from tough ingredients in seconds, the Magic Bullet is best used for milkshakes, purees, and other use cases that involve mixing softer ingredients.
But that’s not the only difference! Check out these bullet juicer reviews to find out what makes each blender great and decide for yourself which machine will fit best into your kitchen.
Bullet Blender Reviews
* Magic Bullet – Easy To Use Bullet Blender For Smoothies
The Magic Bullet is a countertop blender that offers a unique form factor that makes blending extra convenient. Instead of utilizing a normal carafe with a blade in the base, the Magic Bullet comes with several cups that are pretty darn normal looking. These plastic containers have threaded tops that screw into special lids with blender blades built in. You screw the lids on, invert the cups, and press them into the blender to let the machine work its magic.
This isn’t a life changing innovation by any means, but it does make operating this blender both unique and convenient. The cups and blades are extremely easy to clean and are the perfect size for making mixed drinks and milkshakes for any sort of social gathering.
Perhaps most importantly, Magic Bullet offers affordable replacements for any cups or blades that get damaged. This means that you don’t have to buy a new blender if one of your cups breaks – you can just spend a few dollars to get a new cup.
While it’s convenient, the Magic Bullet isn’t particularly powerful. In fact, it’s pretty much the opposite. The 250 watt motor in this blender struggles to deal with ice or food that’s been frozen solid. It will chew through these hard objects eventually, but this might take a few minutes per drink. Perhaps most importantly, you’ll still probably find a few chunks of ice (or fruit) leftover in the finished product.
Further, while the Magic Bullet won’t fail to mix softer foods, it will fail to mix them evenly. Even the most liquid of salsa recipes can wind up with fairly large chunks of tomatoes that go unblended, while other chunks in the same batch get pureed into an incredibly fine pulp. Again, you can compensate for this somewhat with manual stirring and longer blend times, but you’ll probably still find yourself at least somewhat unhappy with the finished result.
This doesn’t mean that I don’t like the Magic Bullet. Instead, it’s very much the opposite. The Magic Bullet is a brilliant tool that happens to be very, very good at the thing that it does. If you’re mixing soft foods (like a milkshake) and you don’t mind the finished product being faintly uneven, it’s absolutely perfect.
The added convenience of the unique cups helps give it an edge over other blenders, while the incredibly low cost and availability of replacement parts seal the deal. If you’re planning on serving drinks at a party or you’re willing to let your fruit thaw a bit before you make your green smoothies, it’s a brilliant tool.
Why is that?
First of all, because proper prep minimizes the downsides. Using fully frozen fruit, full sized ice cubes, or certain combinations of hard ingredients will invariably result in big chunks of stuff in your finished smoothies. Letting the fruit melt a bit and using smaller ice cubes and pre-chopped hard veggies will go a long way towards solving this problem.
Note that this won’t solve things completely – you’ll still get smoothies that aren’t as smooth as something from a Vitamix – but the result won’t kill you. You’ll just eat a bit of strawberry that hasn’t been totally pureed.
Second, because the convenience really cannot be overstated. Cleaning the lids and bowls (cups?) that come with this blender is a breeze. For social gatherings, guests can carry around their own personal blender bowl and refill it with freshly mixed margarita ( or whatever you’re serving) whenever they like.
It’s also great for houses with kids, where the smaller overall size helps keep the little ones happy without giving them a monster milkshake overload.
Third, and finally, because the price is right. I mentioned earlier that the Magic Bullet is cheap. I challenge you to put that cost into perspective. How many milkshakes at a local food joint can you buy for the cost of this Magic Bullet package? Not many, I would wager. The low cost of this blender helps you save money overall while still enjoying delicious blended beverages, dips, and more.
Before you rush off and buy one of these, however, let’s talk about a few additional downsides. First, the Magic Bullet does not last forever. You can buy replacement cups and blades pretty cheaply, but the motor itself may wear out after a fairly short period of use if you use it for robust tasks frequently. It’s not the beefiest machine on the market.
In general, the low cost of this device leaves me happy to recommend it to most families, but if you think you’ll be using this blender multiple times a day to make ice-heavy beverages, you probably should get something with a bit more power and durability.
Second, the Magic Bullet is small. Again, in a lot of cases this is good – it helps you make cute quantities of your favorite blended adult beverages instead of pitchers – but when it’s time to blend lots of stuff in a short amount of time, you definitely want a different blender. This doesn’t factor in the Magic Bullet’s tendency to take longer than other blenders to achieve the same smoothness, either. If you want lots of smoothies that are well mixed, it’ll take even longer.
Third, the unique bullet-style carafes have a fairly noticeable flaw: it’s a pain to get the lids on and off. While you can just pop the lid
off a normal blender and stir things up manually with a spoon, you have to unscrew the top of each blender cup with a Magic Bullet. This makes the fact that smoothies can get “stuck” inside the cup more frustrating. You’ll wind up just shaking the whole cup with the lid on, which works in most cases, but will sometimes fail to get the job done.
Finally, the Magic Bullet isn’t particularly versatile. I know I mentioned that you don’t want to use it for crushing large ice cubes or pureeing hard vegetables, but you also can’t use it to make nut butter or even to blend a hot soup. These probably aren’t things that you buy a Magic Bullet for, but you can certainly find a blender that excels at performing these tasks.
Overall, while I think there are many households that should buy a Magic Bullet, there are many that should not. If you need a small blender that’s cheap and best suited for light blending that doesn’t need to be fast or thorough, the Magic Bullet is a great buy.
It’s perfect as an additional blender that you bust out for drinks while entertaining or as a compact tool to make milkshakes for you and your family. As a primary blender for a household of serious smoothie enthusiasts, however, you might want to pick something else.
* NutriBullet Blender – All About The NutriBullet
If you want something a bit beefier, the NutriBullet blender offers significant improvements in practical blending power over the Magic Bullet. The larger, more expensive NutriBullet blends faster, smoother, and more easily. It can’t quite match a pricy Vitamix in terms of features or power, but it offers more than enough oomph to be the primary blender for most kitchens.
The general design of the NutriBullet is quite similar to the MagicBullet above. It’s a bit larger, with bigger cups and a bigger base, but it still features the same set of blender cups with blades in the removable lids. These unique carafes are easy to clean and make pretty good serving vessels when you’re feeling stylish or lazy.
In terms of numbers, the NutriBullet offers 600 watts of power versus the Magic Bullet’s 250. This is far, far more than just twice as good as far as blending is concerned. Side-by-side comparisons reveal that the NutriBullet delivers smoothly blended drinks in a mere fraction of the time that it takes the Magic Bullet to produce something that’s still pretty lumpy.
As far as ingredients go, the NutriBullet has no problems with fully frozen fruit, normal ice cubes, and hard vegetables like carrots. This means you can use pretty much any smoothie or blended drink recipe without having to thaw the right frozen fruit or buy pre-crushed ice.
More importantly, however, the things you blend come out smooth and evenly mixed.
I said earlier that there’s nothing wrong with eating a little chunk of un-blended fruit every once in a while – and there’s not. It is, however, somewhat unpleasant, especially when you’re deliberately putting ingredients you don’t love eating raw into your healthy power smoothies. The NutriBullet is truly the Magic Nutrition Bullet here, since It prevents you from ever getting a chunk of kale stuck in your teeth.
One of the things that I like the most about both the Magic Bullet and the NutriBullet is the easy availability of replacement parts. New blades and carafes are readily available on Amazon for just a few dollars, meaning you don’t have to worry about wear and tear on key parts. After a year or two of cutting ice with the NutriBullet’s hard steel blades, you can simply order a new cap or two to restore your blender to its full glory.
The biggest drawback to this unit is the price. It’s a fair bit more expensive than the Magic Bullet above. If you’re a smoothie lover, you won’t mind the cost hike. The Magic NutriBullet easily makes up for the extra money you spend by blending faster and smoother. Even with a fairly lax, soft recipe, it’ll usually produce a smoother smoothie in a fraction of the time.
So is this the best bullet? Sort of.
Magic makes a number of upgraded NutriBullets with more power and extra features. Truthfully, I’m not sure how many people actually need more power than the regular old NutriBullet. It’s more than powerful enough and fast enough for fairly serious smoothie drinkers, and it can even act as a food processor in a pinch.
The real question is whether you should get a NutriBullet or a Vitamix. Of the blenders that serve as Magic Bullet competition, Vitamix’s machines are particularly well reviewed. They offer significantly more power, which means faster blending, smoother smoothies, and a slightly different noise.
While they’re mower powerful, Vitamix blenders also have traditional carafes instead of Bullet-style cups with the blades in the lid. In most cases, I think that the bullet-style carafe in the NutriBullet works out to be an upside. It is awkward to blend large single batches of liquid, however, and you sometimes want to stick a spoon into the blender carafe without having to unscrew things.
As to which one you should buy, I’d strongly recommend checking out the NutriBullet first. It takes a bit longer than Vitamix blenders to achieve ultimate smoothness, sure, and the slightly smaller carafes won’t let you make as much liquid at once, but these are pretty small prices to pay for the significant financial savings you’ll enjoy when you choose a Bullet over a Vitamix.
The cost difference is enough to pay for several months’ worth of smoothies in most households. Should you decide that you’re still super into smoothies after a year or two, you can always upgrade to a Vitamix.
Overall, I think that the NutriBullet is one of the best blenders you can pick up if you’d like to try making nutritional green power smoothies. It’s also great for milkshakes, as a general cooking companion, and for pretty much any other task you can use a blender for. The unique Bullet-style blender cups make it easy to use and clean, giving it a big edge over similar conventional blenders.
It’s not the fastest or most powerful blender you can buy, but it’s both fast and powerful enough for most users. While it’s more expensive than the less powerful, normal Magic Bullet, the NutriBullet is still quite affordable for the power it provides. Cheap, readily available replacement parts give it great longevity, too. In other words, it’s pretty much the Goldilocks of smoothie machines – it’s just right.
Difference Between Magic Bullet and NutriBullet – Why The NutriBullet Is Worth The Extra Money
The most important difference between the Magic Bullet and the NutriBullet is the power of the blender. The Magic Bullet can make milkshakes, smoothies with thawed ingredients, and handles crushed ice pretty well. It’s a bit slow, however, and the lack of sheer rotational speed makes a big difference in terms of how evenly mixed the finished product is.
The NutriBullet is much, much more powerful.
Not only is it significantly faster at blending than the Magic Bullet, it also produces much more smooth and even smoothies (or soups or milkshakes or anything else you blend). More importantly, however, it handles full sized ice, hard frozen fruits, nuts, and even hard vegetables like carrots with ease. This reduces the amount of time you have to spend prepping food before it even gets to your blender.
In terms of practical power differences, you’ll notice two big things. First of all, the speed savings from a Magic Bullet to a NutriBullet is pretty noticeable. Making smoothies with a Magic Bullet often involves blending things for a while, shaking the carafe, then blending them for a while more. The NutriBullet will often have things done long before the Magic Bullet has even finished its first blend cycle.
Second, the feel of the food you blend with each blender will be noticeably different. The NutriBullet blends things fairly smoothly and fairly evenly, especially when compared to the cheaper Magic Bullet. The regular old Magic Bullet, by comparison, tends to leave food somewhat unevenly mixed. Even if you shake the carafe several times in between pulsing your smoothie on the blender, you’ll occasionally find a chunk of ice, fruit, or vegetable that didn’t get blended properly.
Admittedly, this is par for the course with blending. You’ll get this sort of thing with a top-end Vitamix every once in a while. With the Magic Bullet, it happens a lot more frequently than normal. If you’re making milkshakes or smoothies with ingredients you like eating, this might not be a big deal. If you’re making smoothies to avoid the taste of vegetables, you might not like eating a chunk of spinach or kale.
Another important difference between these two blenders is size. This one is pretty obvious when you look at the blenders side by side, but you don’t often have a chance to do this before you buy. The NutriBullet can fit blender cups of up to 24 oz, while the regular Magic Bullet tends to use 16 oz containers. This means you can blend about 50% more smoothie in a NutriBullet at once.
There’s a big difference in cost between the Magic Bullet and the NutriBullet. While the NutriBullet is still cheaper than many high end smoothie blenders, the Magic Bullet is even cheaper still. If budget is an issue or you simply don’t care about the extra blending power and speed, the Magic Bullet will leave room in your wallet to buy lots of additional smoothie ingredients.
Some minor differences: while you can technically argue that the NutriBullet comes with more recipes for smoothies, you can simply use your favorite search engine to find oodles blender recipes than you can use with either blender. Additionally, while the smaller Magic Bullet cups occasionally have dishwasher safe attachments, the more robust steel used in the NutriBullet blades doesn’t like dishwashers as much.
The cups themselves are top-rack dishwasher safe for both blenders.
Other than these differences, the machines are quite similar. Both feature the signature blender cups with blades in the removable lids, allowing you to clean things up in a jiffy when you get done blending. Both are fairly small, neither has complex controls (you simply put the blender cup in the blender to blend), and both are quite affordable when compared to something like a Vitamix.
NutriBullet Vs Magic Bullet – The Silver Bullet For Blending Smoothies
Find the time (or the motivation) to eat a healthy amount of vegetables can be hard. Both the Magic Bullet and the NutriBullet are great tools for sneaking extra vegetables into your diet. These innovative blenders allow you to process vegetables like kale, spinach, and carrots into tasty smoothies that you’ll actually enjoy drinking.
While both blenders work fantastically for casual smoothie making, the NutriBullet has a big advantage for people who are more serious about their blended beverages. The NutriBullet’s more powerful motor blends faster and smoother, enabling you to skip out on extra ingredient prep and get to enjoying a smooth, delicious smoothie in less time. This isn’t to say that the Magic Bullet is bad. Instead, it’s simply outclassed by its more expensive cousin.
