Ninja Nutri Pro Compact (BN401) vs. Ninja Nutri Auto-iQ Personal Blender Side-by-Side Comparison

If your idea of a protein shake includes raw nuts or dried fruits, fear not! The Ninja BN401 Nutri Pro won’t let you down. 

In this test, it took only 1 minute to turn all the oatmeal into liquid form, which was far faster than average. A quick blending time means you’ll always have a quick snack or protein shake at hand whenever you want. Note that quite a bit of the almonds and dried blueberries remained solid, making the final drink relatively lumpy. But overall, it was still much smoother than shakes produced by rivals such as the Magic Bullet. 

Most importantly, our chefs agree that you’ll get a more savory sipping experience if you let everything mix together a bit longer. Soaking the nuts prior to blending gives you a less chunky texture as well.

The Ninja Nutri is essentially a single-serve blender but refinements to its blades and motor’s power have brought it many advantages over the competition. 

You might notice the blade assembly looks like nothing else in the market. Design-wise, it is attention to detail with four sharp, sophisticated prongs. Beyonds spinning extremely speedy, the prongs are towards various sides to allow for more food contact at a time. And such combos did make our Ninja Nutri among the fastest blenders in this test, taking one minute and ten seconds to yield a serving of protein shake. Not to mention the 1000-watt motor which helped churn through ingredients like almonds, dried berries, oatmeal, with super ease. 

As efficient as it was, this blender still underperformed by a few seconds against two top competitors (the Ninja Fit and the NutriBullet), though. The texture it delivered also had room for improvement since while the oatmeal was completely broken down, small amounts of almonds and berries remained solid. Considering the price, we had wished for a chunky-free texture which was exactly similar to those we got from its counterparts. 

Overall, unless you’re really interested in its professional look and hi-tech features, there are some alternatives that can actually blend your drink better and do so at less than half the price.

For certain treats like icy smoothies, blending time is a significant factor. Frozen ingredients thaw quickly at room temperature, so if you don’t blend fast enough, your beverage will be thinner than expected. Fortunately, the Ninja BN401 Nutri Pro is good enough to generate whichever texture you prefer. 

Contrary to the protein shake test, all the ingredients came together quickly in this smoothie. We intentionally created a tough test containing all frozen ingredients, but we still received a perfect smoothness in only one minute. 

On a more pragmatic note, the Ninja BN401 operates very smoothly even on heavy-duty blends. While most other personal blenders, such as the Ninja Fit, clogged themselves up with accumulated ingredients under the blades, this unit ensures all the fruits can circulate freely. Sometimes, we noticed a couple chunks clinging to the cup’s sides, but they quickly dislodged themselves without our interference.  

All things considered, it’s apparent that the Ninja BN401 Nutri Pro is a perfect way to turn your favorite healthy fruits into refreshing breakfast and post-workout smoothies, especially for a busy morning.

The Nutri Ninja was excellent at this test. Again, its distinctly-designed blades and higher-powered motor were good things for a quick, even outcome. They allowed the blender to power through all the frozen mango, strawberries, raspberries, and blueberries to perfection in just over one minute. And we remember everything was very easy and simple here, which you will rarely experience with other weaker personal blenders. Just noting that the process was fifteen seconds slower than that of the NutriBullet, but this wasn’t a huge gap. You might be willing to wait a bit longer as long as you get good results. 

Initially, we intended to use the Auto-IQ Ultra Blend setting, but the testing trials then suggested us shifting to the regular one. When running on the Auto-IQ Ultra Blend mode, your blender will blend in short intervals in 60 seconds and there will be a unique pulsing and pausing pattern after each interval. This is meant to force all the clogged ingredients back down onto the blades to even out the blend. That being said, we don’t think this is highly necessary in making icy smoothies; frozen fruits need to blend as fast as possible, but the pausing intervals give them time to thaw and then dilute the consistency. Perhaps, the Auto-IQ technology is better for dry-grinding harder ingredients like whole ice cubes and raw nuts.

The speed and power of the Ninja BN401 Nutri Pro makes it a useful personal blender when you want to incorporate more leafy greens into your daily meals. 

In this test, we aimed to create a smooth blend of celery, kale, and spinach. In just 20 seconds, this little Ninja delivered exactly that. 

Of all the machines we’ve experienced, the Ninja BN401 Nutri Pro was among the elite few that could fully shred the leafy veggies so quickly, thus retaining all of their nutritious fiber and antioxidants. Very little pulp remained behind in the mesh strainer. That’s compared to some of its rivals that needed double the time and others that were too weak to grind the ingredients finely.  

The mixture would’ve had a finer consistency if we had blended it longer, but even so, there’s no way to make this blend completely free of pulp. If you prefer your drink to be perfectly smooth, you’ll need to strain it through a filtration bag to remove all the pulp.

The blender’s ability to process leafy vegetables was above average. The final drink came out acceptably uniform but with a gritty texture. We don’t think you’ll get too many complaints if you run everything through a mesh strainer before drinking. Given its high-end price tag, however, we expected better results with fewer leafy chunks.

The blade spins very fast and is sturdily designed. This, combined with a mighty 1000-watt motor, allows the Ninja BN401 to tear apart the ice without a struggle. Believe it or not, six ounces of ice cubes came out with a snow-like consistency in just 14 seconds! Even the toughest ingredients like whole ice cubes won’t pose a problem for this blender. It will be easier than ever to entertain your guests with any icy-cold drinks!

As a personal blender, this Nutri Ninja didn’t perform half bad, grinding 6 oz of whole ice cubes in just 22 seconds. None of the other blenders we tested could do the same; some took longer to entirely break up the ice while others were simply not powerful enough to churn through such a solid ingredient. (For example, the KOIOS Pro and the Oster)The crushed ice didn’t have a snow-like texture, but would be good enough for your cocktails.