iCucina Portable Bullet vs. KOIOS Pro 850W Bullet 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 KOIOS’s blade has a rotation speed that is fairly quick for the class so it shouldn’t be surprising that this blender can make a good breakfast or post-workout milkshake in a matter of seconds. Not to mention its high-powered motor and more-than-average number of blade prongs (more prongs means more food contact, and results in faster results).

In this test, it took less than 1 minute to break down and combine all the ingredients, which was faster than most. The powerful motor couldn’t quite remove all lumps from the protein shake, but only a few chunks remained unblended, so our drink was still pleasant to drink. Moreover, the residual solids didn’t affect the tasting experience much — they were so tiny that they didn’t bother us at all. If you want smoother results, consider the NutriBullet or the Ninja Fit, though.

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 KOIOS Bullet brought all the ingredients together for a great-tasting smoothie in one minute and twenty seconds. Of all the similarly-priced blenders we tested, it was the only one that could liquify frozen ingredients that quickly. Most were 20-40 seconds slower, such as the Black+Decker, but that can make a difference; frozen foods thaw quickly at room temperature, so the longer you blend, the more your smoothie will be diluted. 

Simply put, the quicker performance of the KOIOS made for a thicker and more ice-cream-like smoothie. Chilly and fresh enough to quench our thirst, it also retained the texture that people look for in frozen fruit smoothies.

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.

We evaluated how well this blender handled fiber by blending kale, celery, spinach, and water for 20 seconds. The mixture came out grainy with a substantial amount of partially blended particles. Then, we drained it through a mesh strainer and examined the pulp. It looked like green sand with a moderately coarse consistency. We didn't taste the mixture prior to draining, but this coarseness, together with the volume of pulp, meant this blender failed to extract most of the flavor from the greens. 

We can’t say for sure if more blending time would improve the final result, but can conclusively say that 20 seconds worth of blending is not enough. By comparison, the Ninja Fit did the same job much better, leaving behind a significantly smaller amount of visible flakes. 

Our conclusion is that the KOIOS is just mediocre for blending leafy veggies. If you want to avoid leafy chunks in a quick high-fiber beverage, this is not the blender for you.

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.

In this test, its performance was lackluster. The machine itself is incapable of crushing ice cubes. In fact, attempting to do so is not a good idea; the heavy-duty task can take a toll on your device and impair its performance in more ordinary blends.