iCucina Portable Bullet vs. NutriBullet Pro 900W Side-by-Side Comparison

The iCucina may be a good choice for you to prepare any protein shakes that use fresh plant-based food, but if you want to level up your workout drinks with raw nuts and dried fruits, we recommend going with other models, such as the Ninja Fit, Nutri BN401, or the NutriBullet. This blender is inefficient enough to liquify and combine such ingredients fully. 

For this test, our protein shake is designed to include oatmeal, almonds, protein powder, and dried blueberries. Throughout the blending process, we noticed that this blender didn’t have much hard time grinding the ingredients; it worked quite smoothly, indeed. All the oatmeal was turned into liquid form in approximately two minutes, which seemed not to be so fast yet acceptable enough. The final drink, unfortunately, couldn’t get the most flavor out of almonds and berries, since about a third of the fruits were still solid.

The NutriBullet Pro is amazingly capable when it comes to preparing protein shakes. In this test, it was the fastest contender, mixing a silky-smooth workout drink in only 40 seconds. It blended well enough that we didn't need to shake the cup to promote contact between the food and blades. The blade spined extremely fast and together with the mighty motor, it allowed the blender to draw everything toward the blades and tear apart each at the same time without any struggle. You might notice there even wasn’t a time that food clinged to the sides of the cup.

There were also blenders that delivered the same result, such as the Ninja Fit, but they all demanded extra shaking or stirring to dislodge chunks trapped on or around the blades during the blending process. Efficiency aside, it’s apparent that your NutriBullet Pro will also outperform its rivals in terms of use ease.

Berries are the favorite superfoods of many people but their skins and seeds are typically a little bit hard to be liquified entirely. That’s why our recipe for this test calls for four berry varieties; we want it to be a practical way to test for the smoothie-making capacity of our personal blenders, including this iCucina, and fortunately, it does. 

Preparing frozen fruit smoothies with the iCucina asked us to compromise on texture. This was because while this blender could break down all the fruits in one minute and fifty seconds, after such a duration, the smoothie it delivered did lose its thick, icy consistency we prefer. 

Simply put, for an ice-cold treat to come out perfectly, your blender should blend as fast as possible so the frozen ingredients don’t have time to thaw and therefore dilute the overall consistency. But as we learned from our tests, this blender isn’t capable enough in this regard. We recommend using crushed ice instead of freezing your ingredients in advance if you prefer a smoother icy blend.

The NutriBullet completed our smoothie in less than a minute, and its results were unparalleled. Our smoothie came out exceptionally velvety. Although there were still tiny flecks of raspberry skin and strawberry seeds, this is a common occurrence when it comes to processing such ingredients. 

It’s worth noting here that no other personal blender we tested could produce such an ideal texture in the same time frame; some couldn’t even break down strawberries after a full minute. Again, this blender never demanded that we shake the cup or stir the contents, and we really couldn't be happier.

Aside from the high-speed rotation and powerful motor, we supposed the blade assembly is a factor creating this outstanding performance. Personal blenders typically feature a blade assembly with two or four prongs, but the NutriBullet is an exception. Made of first-grade stainless steel, its blade is a clear step above those of the competition, including even the pricey Ninja Nutri Pro. It isn’t super sharp, but looks thicker than most and has up to six prongs. More prongs allows for more food contact at the time so the final drink will come out faster and finer.

We blended kale, spinach, and celery in the time benchmark of 20 seconds to see how well this iCucina would incorporate fibers to your meals. Eventually, we found this blender underperformed significantly against top competitors, again. There was a ton of fibrous pulp left behind when we strained the mixture through a mesh strainer. This suggested that our final drink didn’t get the greatest nutritional value. 

Perhaps, you might think it isn’t necessary to blend that quickly, blending a little bit longer is concede as long as your desired consistency can be achieved. For the most part, we agreed this is entirely possible with the iCucina.

Liquifying high-fiber whole food like leafy veggies is always a challenging task for personal blenders, but the NutriBullet’s performance really made it stand out from the rest. 

It could break all the ingredients down into their finest state in only 20 seconds. We drained the completed drink through a mesh strainer and noticed it left behind very few leafy chunks. It could produce an even better result if we blended longer. 

Actually, we didn’t expect such good results so quickly. Most of the machines we tested turned out very coarse blends on this test, such as the Magic Bullet.

Typically, personal blenders aren’t designed with a focus on ice-crushing capability, and the iCucina is not an exception. The lack of strength prevented it from powering through the ice. We noticed that the blade couldn't even spin so most of the ice came out virtually untouched. Sometimes we undocked the cup and shook it on purpose to even out the blend, but this still couldn’t help much. If you particularly have a need for this sort of blend, you’d be better served by something that is packed with a higher-powered motor, such as the Ninja Nutri Pro.

The NutriBullet Pro is not only capable of crushing ice cubes, it excels at it! We tested a myriad of personal blenders, and so far haven't found a single machine that can crush ice as fluffy as this one. 

It finished the test in about 40 seconds. A couple of ice chunks still remained solid, but it didn’t look like the blades would be able to grab them. Nevertheless, this NutriBullet performed wonderfully and is very deserving of the top score.