Cooking Appliances review
Ninja BN701 Review: Ice in 20 Seconds, Kale in Three Minutes and Still Chunky
Shouldit scored crushed ice a perfect 10 and a regular green smoothie 4.6. The blade stack that makes the first result possible is what causes the second.
By Paulo GerchonPublished 2 min read
Illustration, not a photo — we don’t have a licensed image of this product yet.
Ninja
Ninja Professional Plus Blender with Auto-iQ
Fair · researched from 3 sources
A superb ice crusher and frozen drink machine wrapped around a blade design that fights you on anything fibrous. If your blender's job is smoothies from frozen fruit and margaritas, this is very good value and very loud.
- Buy if
- Frozen fruit smoothies and frozen drinks · Crushed ice, where one lab scored it a perfect 10 · Large batches, at 72 ounces
- Skip if
- Green smoothies with leafy greens · Soup, nut butters or grinding anything into flour · Open-plan kitchens, at a measured 99.3 dB
We don’t list prices, because Amazon’s change hourly.
Ten out of ten, and 4.6 out of ten
Shouldit scored crushed ice a perfect 10, at 20 seconds to a very fine texture.
Shouldit scored a regular smoothie 4.6, after three minutes, still chunky, with strips of leaf left in it.
Same blender, same afternoon. The gap between those two numbers is the entire review.
The reason is the blade stack
Shouldit's explanation is the most useful thing written about this machine: the stacked blade assembly does not efficiently draw ingredients down toward the blades, and centrifugal force pushes the contents outward rather than into the centre.
For ice, that does not matter. Ice is heavy and falls back into the blades under its own weight, which is why six blades stacked at different heights shred it so effectively.
For kale, it matters completely. A leaf is light, it goes outward, and it stays plastered to the wall of the pitcher while the blades spin in a hole in the middle.
Every source reports stopping to stir. That is why.
What the pattern looks like across three reviews
TechGearLab: smoothies 6.0 out of 10, excellent on berry and Oreo, struggling with green smoothies and fruit-and-oat blends. Frozen drinks 7.5, margarita in 120 seconds.
Shouldit: frozen fruit smoothie 6.5 after four minutes, silky but needing manual intervention. Protein shake 7.6. Almond butter 7.8 after five minutes. Regular smoothie 4.6.
Blender Junkie: frozen fruit smoothies perfectly smooth in about 20 seconds.
Frozen and heavy: good. Fibrous and light: not good. There is no source that disagrees with that split.
And it is extremely loud
Shouldit measured 99.3 dB and compares it to a vacuum cleaner.
Blender Junkie's version is the one you will remember: pause-your-conversation loud, wake-the-dead loud.
TechGearLab lists it among the criticisms without a number.
The things it cannot do at all
TechGearLab tested soup and got a grainy, lumpy texture, and points out the machine cannot heat while pureeing, so it fails as a soup blender twice over.
It cannot grind kernels into flour.
And Shouldit found two build problems worth knowing: the plastic pitcher scratches easily after very little use, and the blade assembly can misalign with the lid in a way that risks damaging both.
Against all of that, a 72-ounce pitcher, three clearly labelled presets that TechGearLab scored 8.0 out of 10, and everything except the base going in the dishwasher, at a price both TechGearLab and Blender Junkie call good value.
How it scored
The overall 6.5 is the weighted average of these five criteria — we never adjust it by hand.
Performance
Shouldit scored crushed ice 10 out of 10 at 20 seconds and a regular smoothie 4.6. TechGearLab scored smoothies 6.0 and pureeing 5.8, calling soup grainy and lumpy.
Value
TechGearLab ranked it tenth of fifteen at 68 out of 100 and calls it affordable. Blender Junkie calls it exceptional value. Shouldit scored 6.5 out of 10.
Build quality
Six stacked stainless blades at varying heights in a 72 oz plastic pitcher. Shouldit reports the plastic scratching easily and a blade-to-lid misalignment risk.
Ease of use
TechGearLab scored controls 8.0 out of 10 with three clearly labelled presets, and cleaning 7.9. Blender Junkie notes everything but the base is dishwasher safe.
Noise
Shouldit measured 99.3 dB, which they compare to a vacuum cleaner. Blender Junkie describes it as pause-your-conversation loud. TechGearLab lists noise as a criticism.
Pros and cons
What we liked
- Shouldit scored crushed ice a perfect 10, at 20 seconds to a very fine texture
- TechGearLab scored frozen drinks 7.5 out of 10, with a margarita in 120 seconds
- A 72 oz pitcher, which TechGearLab calls party-sized
- TechGearLab scored controls 8.0 out of 10 across three presets
- Everything but the base goes in the dishwasher
- Blender Junkie got perfectly smooth frozen fruit smoothies in about 20 seconds
What we didn’t
- Shouldit measured 99.3 dB, comparable to a vacuum cleaner
- Shouldit scored a regular smoothie 4.6 out of 10, chunky with leafy greens
- TechGearLab found soup grainy and lumpy, and the blender cannot heat while pureeing
- TechGearLab says it cannot grind kernels into flour
- Shouldit reports the blade stack pushing contents away rather than drawing them in
- Shouldit found the plastic pitcher scratching easily after minimal use
Specifications
| Motor | 1400 peak watts per Shouldit and Blender Junkie; 1200 W, peak 1.9 hp, per TechGearLab |
|---|---|
| Pitcher | 72 oz, with 64 oz maximum liquid per Blender Junkie |
| Blades | Six stainless steel blades stacked at varying heights |
| Crushed ice | 20 s to a very fine texture per Shouldit; 60 s to a soft uniform powder per TechGearLab |
| Frozen drinks | 120 s for a margarita per TechGearLab |
| Noise | 99.3 dB per Shouldit |
| Weight | 8 lb per Shouldit |
| Dimensions | 17 x 9.3 x 6.6 in per Shouldit |
| Presets | Smoothie, Ice Crush and Ice Cream |
| Dishwasher safe | Lid, pitcher and blades; not the base |
How we researched this
We have not had this unit on the bench. This review synthesises the manufacturer’s published specifications, independent measurements and owner reports listed below. Every figure on this page comes from one of those sources rather than our own measurement.
3
sources reviewed
TechGearLab tested it against fourteen other blenders and supplies the category scores and weights, the timed frozen drink and ice results, the soup and flour findings and the motor rating, ranking it tenth of fifteen at 68 out of 100. Shouldit supplies timed and scored results for five separate tasks, the measured noise level, the blade count and geometry, the weight and dimensions and the mechanical explanation for the leafy green failure, scoring 6.5 out of 10. Blender Junkie supplies the liquid capacity, a third smoothie observation, the dishwasher detail and practical criticisms about storage and the suction feet. The motor is given as 1200 W by one source and 1400 peak watts by two, which is most likely continuous against peak, and both are reported.
What we read
Common questions
How well does the Ninja BN701 crush ice?
Can it make a green smoothie?
Why does it struggle with leafy greens?
How loud is it?
What else does it not do?
The bottom line on the Ninja Professional Plus Blender with Auto-iQ
A superb ice crusher and frozen drink machine wrapped around a blade design that fights you on anything fibrous. If your blender's job is smoothies from frozen fruit and margaritas, this is very good value and very loud.
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