Oster BLSTPB-WGN-000 My Blend 250-Watt Blender, Green

I have been using it for more than five years and it is intact.

I bought this in the blue and white model in 2019-it was the only color that was available. This blender is sturdy. One glitch is the knock off replacement blade tops. Get the wrong one, and its hard to line up the plastic top w/ blades to the bottom spinner. Wrong one: the liquid leaks into the machine, or it will knock the spinner off balance and the blades won't stop turning -till you unplug it. So, folks get the right blade replacement top-check the model # under the machine.

Very impressive blender. It was well made, very useful, and excellently priced.

IN SHORT – The Oster is the choice make a smoothie from milk, yogurt, or a similar liquid, optionally mixing-in a powder or a small amount of berries or other soft fruit, to take with you on the road, to work, etc. The Hamilton Beach is a better choice for home use or travel.DESIGN – The Hamilton Beach is essentially a miniature inexpensive traditional blender. The Oster is a smoothie mixer.APPEARANCE – The Oster looks more impressive. The Hamilton Beach looks inexpensive.OPERATION – Both are one-speed only. To operate the Hamilton Beach, you seat the container, and push the button, just like a traditional blender. The Hamilton Beach button is “press and hold to operate”, so you can pulse (best for chopping up chunks of fruit, etc). To operate the Oster, you push down the bottle into the blender and slightly rotate – pulsing is a awkward operation.BLENDER PORTABILITY – The Oster is a counter-top appliance – it is large, heavy, and there is no provision for stowing the cord. The Hamilton Beach is light, compact, and has built-in cord storage. You could even pack the Hamilton Beach in your luggage for a trip.CONTAINER/BOTTLE PORTABILITY – The Oster bottle is highly portable, and will fit into car bottle holders – it fits well in your hand to drink from, even while driving. The Hamilton Beach container is less portable, because the base narrows and the blades are part of the container – it would not be ideal to drink from while driving.SAFETY – The blades of the Hamilton Beach are permanently installed in the bottom of container – so you can’t easily cut yourself with them. The blades of the Oster are part of a cap-like device that you have to leave on the counter or store separately when the bottle is in use – the blades stick up and are a potential hazzard.CLEANING – Never put any part of either in a dishwasher. For both, normally, the best way to clean them is to “blend” a cup or so of water in the container/bottle when you are finished mixing/blending. But you can’t do that if the container/bottle is in use. That’s more of a problem for the Oster, simply because the bottle is likely to be in use until the end of the day. If you let residue dry in the container/bottle, the tall skinny Oster bottle is more difficult to clean. The blades of the Oster need to be cleaned immediately, but since the blades are not part of the bottle (which is in use) there is no easy way to do so, other than perhaps with a toothbrush (or if you buy an extra bottle for the purpose). The blades of the Hamilton Beach are not accessible and therefore are more difficult to clean if you allow food to dry on them – but that’s less of a problem because the blades will stay moist as long as there is smoothie in the container, or the container is capped.BLENDING – Except for a small amount of soft fruit, the Oster is a mixer, NOT a blender. The Hamilton Beach can do a good job of blending soft materials (e.g., blueberries or peaches into milk or yogart), but it is not a food processor or juice maker – it doesn’t do a good job of blending hard, or tough, or stringy materials such as carrots, celery, or kale.BOTTLE VISIBILITY – The Oster bottle is pretty, but you can’t see what you are trying to mix/blend well.WHY ISN’T THE OSTER A GOOD BLENDER? – The blades are larger, and the motor seems more powerful. The problem is the method of operation (see above) and the design of the bottle. The containers of traditional blenders (including the “Hamilton Beach Smoothie Blender”) are relatively short, with ribs or scallops, to direct the flow back through the blades. The tall, skinny, smooth, tinted bottle of the Oster is very poorly designed for blending.

EDIT: 5 years later! Still going strong!This is just what I needed! It was pretty annoying having to use and then clean a full sized blender when I was only making a single portion of smoothie. This takes up significantly less space and makes making a single serving a breeze. It doesn't have any buttons, all you do is line it up, and then twist to make it blend, so you do need to be holding it while it blends. Since you're making so little though, it's not really annoying at all. I love being able to twist, blend, take it off the blender, shake it a few times and then put it back on, lets me get a nice even blend.I've read all the reviews here, and it seems like the best way to increase the lifespan of this blender is to realize its limits. It's not going to make super thick, milkshake consistency smoothies. It probably won't be able to handle huge chunks of frozen fruit. But if you give it a break and cut your fruit pretty small before freezing it, then it blends perfectly. I slice my bananas pretty thin and then freeze them, maybe just half inch slices or so- and it handles them with no issues. But I think a whole frozen strawberry would be too much for it.Another thing I read in the reviews is to never let it run too long at once. If you take my advice and make your frozen fruit thin and easy to handle, this won't be an issue. But if you use huge chunks and keep it running it will burn out this poor little blender pretty dang fast. It's a small blender with a small engine, be easy on it.Another thing I read is that it's best to, when done blending, unplug the machine before taking the cup off the blending engine. So you put it on the blender, twist, let it blend, unplug, take it off the blender. This means the engine isn't fighting you to keep the blades spinning, giving it a little more lifespan.It's a blender, so it makes blender noises, but I don't consider it loud. Since it blends pretty fast (if you take my advice above) it shouldn't bother anyone in the morning. And if you have multiple people who like smoothies, you can buy multiple cups (in multiple colors!) so everyone can have their own. That's amazing. They don't have to clean out a huge clunky blender container just so they can have whatever smoothie THEY want.Personally, I don't drink from the cup lid supplied, I just take it off and sip, or use a straw. It's mostly there to keep everything in. And the picture is a little weird, the lid goes where the blades are, so the bottle itself only has one opening. Don't know why they have the lid on top like that.Overall, it's a great little blender. Would recommend if you have kids and you want them to eat healthier. It's pretty safe, since you can't reach your hand into the blades while it's blending. Teach them the limits of the machine and it'll work great for them.My go to smoothie is frozen banana, almond milk, peanut butter and cocoa powder. Makes a nice, slightly sweet but not too sweet smoothie that rounds out at about 300 calories at most. Gives you things like potassium, iron, and protein, so it's a nice beginner smoothie for people who aren't a huge fan of fruit, like myself.If this blender dies on me, I'll get back to you with how long it lasted with the measures I have taken. Hope this review was useful to someone!