Epica Heavy Duty Immersion Hand Blender 4-in-1

The first thing to note is that I’ve only used this hand blender less than ten times. Still the good and the weaker elements are pretty obvious:1) Generous number of attachments for the price: 5 stars. In addition to soup immersion blender, there is a whisk attachment and a canister attachment, etc. Folliwing is a quick review of the functionality of the attachments.2) Blending soup in the pot using the immersion attachment: 5 stars. I do let the soup cool first. I bought this immersion blender for this purpose. It’s easy to clean and operate, more solidly built than expected. Doesn’t take one minute to blend a large pot of soup with this gizmo. No stray drops spraying out of the pot either. The ability to manually make the speed go up or down also good. It’s this function that this immersion blender is worth the money for.3) the whisk attachment: 4 stars. While this is very useful in theory and works quite well, the one minute limitation (or the engine might burn out) is an issue here, so for serious whisking egg whites into peaks, I still use the KitchenAide stand mixer. It is important to note this immersion blender (like my Magic Bullet juicer) comes with a one-minute-or-the-engine-might-burn-out limitation.4) chopping/food processing softer foods like onion in the provided canister attachment: 3 stars. While I give them 5 stars for the inherent value and their generosity in providing the canister with the S-blade at all for this price, functionally the canister isn’t great. Not horribly terrible, but also not great. Even easy-to-chop foods like onion tends to get caught below the blade so not everything gets chopped without reopening the canister repeatedly and doing lots of hand mixing in the canister. Also, one minute not enough to get much done in the canister. It is important to note this immersion blender (like my Magic Bullet juicer) comes with a one-minute-or-the-engine-might-burn-out limitation.5) chopping slightly harder things like softened soaked nuts in the canister: 1 star. Sadly this isn’t going to take the place of a food processor.So five stars for value, for soup immersion function, and downhill from there. That said, I’d rather have the extra attachments than not have them!November 30 2022 UPDATE: It's three years now since I started using this, and am happy to say still works great for blending soup - I only use it once in awhile, but three years is still three years. My most recent use was a few days ago to blend potato-asparagus soup - which is a good test I think. The potatoes were first cut into pieces RAW and then boiled in the soup pot with broth and water, SKIN ON, and at the same time the asparagus was cut into pieces and boiled with the potatoes (and some other soup elements). Once the potato was soft, I let the soup cool down a bit and then used this immersion blender right in the soup pot. Never immerse to deeply though. Worked great, would blend for around 15 seconds, clean the potato skin etc off the blade, blend again for around 15 seconds, etc. When all was said and done, made a nice rich smooth soup, hubby asked me to make again, and doing it this way easier than peeling potatoes - LOL :) Hope this review is helpful to you.

UNPACKING:I just received my immersion blender. As I unpacked the components I was disappointed that the little gears that the 350 watt powered engine turns were made of tiny tiny plastic teeth. I am thinking, how can this last? Especially with the kind of torque this thing has? Epica has high customer scores so I'm crossing my fingers that the design is solid. But I was expecting stainless steel gears with a heavy duty feel. The chopping blades are stainless and so is the shaft, but I was very worried after looking at those dinky dinky plastic gears/teeth.USAGE:I couldn't wait to try it out. First was a small smoothie. Putting the shaft onto the powerhouse was simply a snap. Better than a snap, it has a nice kind of soft click to it. The large, soft lighted blue buttons was a pleasant surprise. The company went out of their way, they didn't need to add the LEDs and soft finger pad buttons but they did just for esthetics and comfort. And it is very space agey and pretty when powered on, making it a true delight to run. It has a turn dial to adjust from slow to fast and one additional button for turbo. Before I turned it on I put the dial on the lowest slowest setting. The material blended well. The deep fluted bottom of the blending shaft created no suction feel, which was also a surprise.Next I went to try the chopper. I put broccoli, carrots, a slice of cabbage and a clove of garlic in. The unit was about 1/3 full. After 3 one second pulses, the entire salad was completely chopped, which frankly blew my mind. It chopped it all effortlessly, evenly and in perfect size tidbits. The blades went through the hard carrots and broccoli as though I was chopping warm butter. So that was a very pleasant unexpected surprise. I at least expected a loud chopping noise and a bit of jumping around and odd chunks that got missed. There was none of that, I might as well had been stirring milk, it was so effortless. I learned it also does nuts, although I haven't tried that yet. It's hard to believe that such tiny little plastic gears can deliver such rotational force so quietly and easily.CLEAN UP:Cleanup is a dream, you can't believe how easy it is to clean. The parts pop off with a natural press of very ergonomically designed buttons. The unit stands solidly by itself, so you just comfortably pop off the parts, set the unit down while you wash, and it stands solidly in place, you don't even have to think about it. My last immersion blender did not have parts and was top heavy so you would never just set it down. It was a solid stick that was accidentally dropped into the sink full of dishwater. :( That was it's untimely end. That is very unlikely to happen with this model, as the motor never needs to be near the sink, and will most certainly not fall over by itself. The pop off parts is a huge convenience.The whisk is nice too, standing straight up in it's little attachment cup for storage ease. I can see that I will be using this whip attachment instead of my hand blender too. Already this device has replaced three of my other kitchen devices. It is so easy and simple to use, natural feeling and pretty.SUMMARY:If those tiny little plastic gears are up to the task then I would say this unit is stellar; it is beautiful, efficient, very ergonomically designed, a true pleasure to use. So far, if the gears hold up, I love this device.