Hamilton Beach 51101AV vs Ninja QB3001SS Fit Side-by-Side Comparison

In this test, the Hamilton Beach took 3 mins 45 secs to yield a portion of protein shake, which is far longer than average. The mixture came out slightly coarse due to a smattering of unblended dried blueberries, but since all the oatmeal and almonds were entirely liquified, it wasn’t too lumpy or unpleasant to drink. For the most part, we agreed many fitness enthusiasts would consider this texture to be acceptable. 

Blending time was a little bit of a compromise, though. Personal blenders are designed to produce quick-blended results so the blending time of nearly four minutes was clearly too long in this regard. Even if you’re willing to blend a bit longer for an acceptable result, running this blender in excess of three minutes will cause its motor to overheat, thus impairing its longevity.

Moreover, to activate the blender, you’ll need to press the Power button continuously until the desired texture is achieved. This means the prolonged processing time will also make your hands tired or even numb.

No matter what ingredients you have on hand for your protein shakes, the Ninja QB3001SS Fit will quickly turn them into a chunk-free mix. Its impeccable performance in this test is evidence of that. Consisting of the toughest-to-blend ingredients, our recipe presents a high level of difficulty, but it still didn’t give this blender any trouble. 

Our Ninja took only 50 seconds to churn out the desired result. The oatmeal was completely broken down while almonds and berries were blended to their finest state. After straining the drink through a strainer, we found a smattering of partially blended chunks, but we don’t think it's enough to turn off many folks. Given such a result, this machine is a worthy competitor to the NutriBullet Pro — our best personal blender at the time of writing.

We began the test by tossing all ingredients into the blending cup, then blending them until they came out smooth or until we hit the time limit (2 minutes). As such, we found this Hamilton Beach to be just mediocrely capable of preparing frozen fruit smoothies. 

The final result appeared visually smooth, but when we used a spoon to stir it back and forth, we noticed a few fruit chunks still remained intact. Considering that such residual solids might be a good compromise for the cheap price, you might think this blender’s performance wasn’t half bad. 

The real problem here, however, was that throughout the whole 2-minute blending procedure, it struggled considerably to break down the ingredients while its counterparts, in contrast, got the job done quicker and more easily (for instance, the Oster and the Ninja Fit). Not to mention its longer-than-average blending time.

Speaking of the blending time, we can’t say for sure if longer processing would have resulted in a silkier smoothie but we can assert that this would have failed to achieve the

thick, ice-cream-like texture we were after. This is because frozen fruits thaw quickly at room temperature, causing the overall consistency to be diluted if a blender isn’t able to blend fast enough.

When it comes to preparing smoothies, this blender’s efficiency is something that we’ve all dreamed about, but never thought possible on a budget. In our test, it allowed for a quick preparation of frozen foods with very little effort thanks to its heavy-duty motor and sturdy blades. The compromise was that we had to pause now and then to shake chunks free from the blades.  

The smoothie was ready to drink within 1 minute of blending, which was far faster than average. In fact, it was fully twice as fast as some other models like the Magic Bullet, the Hamilton Beach, and the Oster. You may think it doesn’t matter much to wait a bit longer, but actually, the difference in blending time between blenders did create a substantial discrepancy in the drink’s texture and temperature.

As a general rule of thumb, frozen foods thaw quickly at room temperature, especially when you start grinding them up. The faster your blender does its job, the thicker and less diluted your smoothie will be. 

Simply put, not only did the Ninja Fit blend smoothly, but its rapid operation also provided us with the thick, ice-cream-like consistency that we prefer in frozen fruit smoothies. If you’re craving icy-cold drinks on hot days, this blender definitely has the chops for it.

After blending all the leafy greens with water in 20 seconds — our time limit for this test, we drained the liquid through a mesh strainer and disappointedly ended up 

with a considerable amount of pulp. Not only that, but we also noticed the pulp was very coarse. This suggested that the extraction ability of this blender is too weak to help you get the most nutrients and flavor out of your veggies. 

Actually, the mixture would’ve had a finer consistency if we had blended it for longer, but this didn’t matter nor wasn’t worth the labor since we have already found several other models that can produce perfect high-fiber extractions, namely, the NutriBullet.

The Ninja Fit is quite capable of incorporating leafy vegetables and other fiber-filled foods into your drink. Of all the blenders we tested, this was one of the few that could break down almost all of kale, spinach, and celery in only 20 seconds. The greens were blended finely and had consistent-sized grounds. Not only that, but it left us with only a little pulp that was too big to pass through a strainer — better results than even the pricier Nutri Ninja Auto-IQ.

The Hamilton Beach wasn’t able to power through ice cubes, causing the final outcome to come out almost pristine, but this is typical for this type of personal blender. If you want fluffy, snow-like crushed ice or desire to incorporate ice into your smoothies, we recommend considering a higher-powered blender, such as the NutriBullet.

In this task, this blender struggled quite a bit, and couldn’t quite power through all the ice cubes. A small amount of ice remained solid — accounting for 20% of the total — when it was all said and done. And again, we had to stop and shake the blending jar to promote the contact between the ice and blades. 

Of all the blenders with small blending cups, however, the Ninja Fit was the only one that actually could perform that well. It even crushed ice as fluffily as its larger counterpart, the NutriBullet Pro. With the Ninja Fit, you may no longer have to deal with whole ice cubes in your drink.