Customer Reviews

Hamilton Beach 50754 WaveStation 10-Speed Dispensing Blender

5 star:		(31)
4 star:		(19)
3 star:		(9)
2 star:		(5)
1 star:		(13)

 

 

I first bought one of these for my father for Father's Day. You should know he's a very cynical guy and I kept my fingers crossed that it would meet with his approval! He and my mother often host parties, and he regularly serves ice-blended drinks made in a regular blender (i.e. stawberry daiqueris). His regular blender often left ice chunks that clogged the straw and remained in the bottom of the glass once the drink was finished. Being the cynical perfectionist he is, I bought him the Hamilton Beach Wavestation to see if it would work better. I chose this over the Back-to-Basics smoothie maker because of the poor quality reviews it gets on many sites.

The Wavestation is AWESOME! There is absolutely NO ice chunks, and no hand-stirring necessary because of the "wave action" mixing. Basically, the shape of the container and the blades create a vortex that continually pulls the top of the mix downward, unlike a typical blender that mostly just mixes what's in the bottom.

My hubby and I decided to buy one of these for ourselves too, mostly for fruit slushies for the kids (we don't entertain the way my parents do!). This is, in my opinion, the best smoothie maker option on the market.

NOTE: At first my dad complained that really thick mixes wouldn't come through the front dispenser and he had to pour them. We found this to be true too, but the pouring worked extremely well (no spills). Then I read in the instruction booklet that with thick mixes, try turning ON the machine, dispense, then turn it off again.

This is an amazing blender - fast, efficient, and easy. I make smoothies for breakfast every morning, and this blender handles anything I want to throw at it...even frozen peaches, which all of my previous blenders have pooped out on. It dispenses drinks quickly, especially if you leave it turned on while you dispense, and cleans up fairly easily. I only wish it could go in the dishwasher. Highly recommended.

Our WaveStation is truly remarkable. The claim on the box of "No More Ice Chunks!" as a result of the company's wave-action system is true. The blending action is quite different from other blenders. Rather than just spinning the contents around at the bottom of the container, the ice mixture is pulled from the top of the batch, down into the blades for a continuous blending operation (no hand stirring required). The result is a smooth, chunk-free frozen drink that dispenses easily from the tap in front of the blender. Wow, what a pleasure it is to have both a well-made frozen drink and a trouble-free dispenser. My guests are delighted when we use this machine and refill their glasses frequently (I cannot tell if it's my drink recipes or they just like to use the dispenser). This is the best blender we have ever had.

This blender does blend ice and smoothies better than any other blender I've had. But it is not dishwasher safe as Amazon says. The manual says to handwash everything. With the dispenser spout, there's about 6 separate pieces you have to handwash after using it. I'm used to sticking the pitcher and blades in the dishwasher and forgetting about it so this has been more work than it's worth. A thicker plastic pitcher would have been nice also--this feels thin and cheap.

I recently incorporated smoothies into my diet. I find that a good thick smoothie made with soy milk, organic plain yogurt, frozen strawberries and the odd banana does wonders for what ails me and helps negate the desire to eat less healthy sweet things. This blender can handle all these ingredients like a champ. I've had it now for two months, and make anywhere from two to seven smoothies per week, mostly using large, uncut frozen strawberries as the fruit. It's still working well, still chopping everything up and doing a great job of blending. It does occasionally need a prod to keep everything blending, especially if I'm going for a thicker, ice-cream like consistency by adding less soy milk, but I find that adding the soy milk before the other ingredients can help keep things moving. At any rate, using whole frozen fruit, it takes less than a minute to assemble and blend the best smoothie I've ever had.

So that's the good stuff. The bad is that the dispenser leaks, at least on the one that I got. It's not a huge problem, as the drip is small and slow, but I usually have a little puddle to mop up after using the blender. Another thing that I find annoying is that the pitcher has an outer, thin plastic sleeve to help keep the temperature regulated. I don't know how necessary this is, but I do know that if I do a quick wash in the sink (I don't have a dishwasher) usually dish detergent gets up inside and I have to rinse, rinse, rinse to get it all out. Sometimes smoothie residue gets in there as well, and it has to be disassembled to be cleaned... not a big chore unless your pitcher is screwed too tight on the base and you can't unscrew it without help! But since I live alone, it's an issue for me. :) That alone would have prevented me from buying this blender. Don't know if others have experienced this.

However, it does do a great job of blending, and the clean-up issues may just be my personal laziness, so I still give this blender four stars.

I was disappointed when I first received the "Wave Station" because for some reason I was expecting the blending jar to be glass. I decided to give it a try anyhow. Now I'm really disappointed! Although it may be powerful enough to crush ice, every time I've used the blender I've had to stop it several times and manually spoon the ingredients out of the recessed areas of the jar. As for the "dispenser", I've given up on trying to dispense my smoothies - it just wasn't going to happen. I'm not sure if anything more viscous than water is getting through that spout. Washing this thing is also quite a challenge; too many parts, none of which are dishwasher safe. I'm glad I didn't throw out my old blender with the broken handle - at least it was functional.

This blender is a dream come true. I am surprised at how inexpensive it is for the quality and functionality of this blender. I love smoothies and am surprised at how easily it blends frozen fruit and ice. I consider this to be one of my smartest purchases yet!

Pros:
1. Easy to clean
2. Powerful enough to actually make good milkshakes with ice
3. The plastic jug is light weight which is actually convenient

Cons:
1. The jug/blender interface has a seal to prevent leaks but it started to leak there after 3 months of use which just really made me angry because I was happy with the item otherwise
1. Although substantially more powerful then my previous blender, it does need a good amount of liquid with it to be able to crush ice otherwise it does have trouble

It mixes very well once it gets started, but I find I have to stir and move the ingredients around. I make a lot of fruit smoothies, and I've tried alternating the order I add the ingredients, but it didn't make any difference. Most recently I tried adding the ice first, then fruit and yogurt on top -- big mistake. For best results, put the ice on top of the fruit and yogurt. But once it starts, it does a great job, no ice chunks!

Every time I have made ice blended drinks before, I have dreaded fighting with my blender to get all the ice chunks and not "vapor lock" on air that gets inducted by the vortex. This blender works, plain and simple.

The spout works almost too well even on the thick smoothies. (No, it will not dispense soft-serve ice cream.) It does in fact operate as a centrifugal pump, and the flow slows down only when the level gets low enough for air to get sucked into the blades. (Use low speed when dispensing)

The insulating sleeve on the jar is great for keeping the drinks cold and dispensing over a period of time without smoothies becoming runnies.

Cleanup is more complicated than an ordinary blender, but with only three more parts, I will gladly deal with it. This blender would be perfect for entertaining, since ingredients could be added to the top and drinks dispensed from the bottom without skipping a beat.

In summary... If you make ice blended drinks, you need this... The fact that it is only $35 makes this one of the biggest no-brainers that I have seen.