Why you can trust TechRadar
We spend hours testing every product or service we review, so you can be sure you’re buying the best. Find out more about how we test.
Ninja Blast Max: one-minute review
The Ninja Blast Max is an updated version of the company’s portable smoothie blender, with a more powerful motor and upgraded blades – and it works brilliantly. The Max is more expensive then the original Ninja Blast, but the price difference is easily justified by the improvement in performance.
Unlike every other personal blender I’ve tested to date, the Ninja Blast Max transforms difficult, fibrous ingredients such as kale into a silky smoothie with just a single blending cycle, leaving behind no unpleasant fragments. In my time using the blender, I didn’t experience any problems with ingredients becoming stuck to the sides of the cup and missing the blades either, which is unusual for a blender this size.
The Max fared equally well when it came to blending large frozen berries, which usually prove too much of a challenge for portable smoothie makers. The blender’s “crush” setting is made for tackling ice cubes, but works equally well for rock-hard frozen fruit, pulverizing it to slushie consistency within a minute.
The blender cup is easy to detach from the charging base, enabling you to sip your smoothie on the move, or take your protein shake to the gym. It fits into a typical cupholder or the side pocket of a backpack, and has a robust silicone carry handle. The only downside is that it isn’t insulated to keep your creations cold. If Ninja could add a second, insulated cup to the package alongside the first, it would be pretty much perfect.
Ninja Blast Max: price and availability
- Available in US and Europe
- List price $89.99/£89.99 (about AU$140)
- About the same price as Nutribullet Flip
The Ninja Blast Max launched in September 2024. It’s available direct from Ninja, and from third-party retailers such as Amazon for $89.99/£89.99. That’s about AU$140, but at the time of writing it isn’t for sale in Australia.
That’s a significant price increase from the original Ninja Blast, which had a list price of $59.99 / £49.99 / AU$79.99; but it’s understandable considering the upgraded motor, blades, and battery.
The Blast Max is roughly the same as the Nutribullet Flip, which is a more direct competitor, and is priced at $99.99 (about £80 / AU$150). The Ninja Blast Max definitely delivers more blending power than the Flip, delivering more bang for your buck.
Ninja Blast Max: design
- Cup is easy to remove from the charging base and carry
- Simple to keep clean
- No leaks when blending, or carrying the cup
The Ninja Blast Max has two components: the base, which contains the battery and motor, and a removable cup with the blade unit at the bottom and a flip-top lid on top. The sip lid also has a silicone handle for easy and comfortable carrying. The cup easily tucked into the side pocket of my backpack, and will fit in most standard cupholders, too.
The base unit has a charging port at the back, with a rubber cover to protect against dust and splashes (although you should never immerse the base in water, and always remove the cup before cleaning).
The base has an attractive ombre finish, and is available in seven color options: Sea Glass, Ivory Cream, Dusty Pink, Gray, Silver, Lavender, and Navy (although not all retailers will stock all seven).
It has a central power button, with a green light that blinks during charging, and controls for three settings: Crush (for ice), Blend, and Smoothie.
The cup has a slightly tapered shape, becoming narrower at the bottom to encourage ingredients to fall onto the blades, but not so narrow that anything becomes stuck. The instructions explain that you can gently shake the blender to dislodge any pieces of fruit or veg that escape the blades, but during my tests I didn’t find this necessary.
The cup has a maximum fill line positioned at the 15.8oz / 450ml mark. That’s the same as the Nutribullet Flip, but the Ninja Blast Max’s removable base means it’s much lighter to carry. The lid creates an extra tight seal when you’re on the move, and I never noticed any leaking when I was blending or carrying it.
The Ninja Blast Max is very easy to keep clean. Like most portable blenders, all you have to do is add some water to the cup with a squirt of dish soap, run a brief blending cycle, then rinse the cup and lid thoroughly and allow them to dry. You can also wash the cup and lid by hand when they need cleaning more thoroughly.
The only downside is that, unlike the Nutribullet Flip, the Ninja Blast Max doesn’t have an insulated cup to keep your creations chilled on the move.
Ninja Blast Max: performance
- Excellent at blending tough vegetables such as kale
- “Crush” mode is great for ice and frozen ingredients
- Ingredients don’t become stuck in cup and miss the blades
The Ninja Blast Max is the most powerful personal blender I’ve tested, capable of turning even tricky ingredients into a creamy smoothie.
After charging the blender for a few hours until the light on the front remained a steady green, I started off by making TechRadar’s test recipe – Nutribullet’s Banana Kale Blueberry Freeze.
Its ingredients are simple enough, but the kale usually presents a big challenge for small blenders, which tend to leave shreds of leaf intact. I loaded up the banana, kale, blueberries and almond milk, then hit the button for the blender’s Smoothie mode. This runs a series of pulses, which pulverizes the ingredients then allows them to settle before hitting them with the blades again.
The results were extremely impressive. Usually I have to run a portable blender for at least two cycles to create something smooth enough to drink, and even then I usually find scraps of kale sticking to my teeth. That wasn’t the case with the Ninja Blast Max, which blended everything together into a tasty and silky smooth drink (even if the color wasn’t terribly appealing).
Frozen berries are another tough challenge for a portable blender, and defeated the Nutribullet Flip when I tested it last year. It took two full blending cycles to turn frozen forest fruits into something drinkable, so I was curious to see how the souped-up Ninja Blast Max would fare.
I decided to make a shake using a scoop of vanilla protein powder, oat milk, and a handful of large frozen strawberries, which are the fruits that seem to defeat most blenders. I used the Ninja Blast Max’s Crush setting, which is designed for tackling ice.
Blending the frozen fruit was quite loud, briefly reaching 85dB during pulses (about the same as a standard jug blender, or heavy traffic), but the noise was only brief and became quieter as each pulse of the Blast Max pulverized the strawberries. The blender has a tendency to move about slightly when blending tough ingredients, but it wasn’t in any danger of falling over.
Once the cycle was over, I had a delicious pink concoction, with no pieces of unblended berry, and a much nicer texture than a typical protein shake. Again, the drink was silky smooth, with no graininess.
I also tested the blender’s ice-crushing abilities, using it to prepare a blended coffee drink. As with all personal blenders, you need to add a minimum amount of liquid before you can crush ice. For this test, I used barista-standard caramel plant milk, with a double shot of espresso.
Again, I used the Crush setting, and I could hear the ice being shattered even faster than the fruit with each pulse. The resulting blended iced coffee looked as good as anything you might get from a coffee shop, with a nice layer of foam on top and no chunks of unblended ice crystals.
You could also make an excellent espresso martini in the same way if you don’t have access to a cocktail shaker.
Should you buy the Ninja Blast Max?
|
Attribute |
Notes |
Score |
|---|---|---|
|
Value |
The Ninja Blast Max has a mid-range price, but top-end performance, making it great value compared to rivals from the likes of Nutribullet. |
5/5 |
|
Design |
Easy to use and clean, with a leakproof lid that you can rely on even when traveling. The only improvement I can think of would be an optional insulated cup included together with the glass one. |
4.5/5 |
|
Performance |
Its powerful motor and blades make light work of even the most challenging ingredients, including hard frozen fruit and fibrous vegetables. Just one blending cycle turns them into a silky smoothie. |
5/5 |
Buy it if
Don’t buy it if
Ninja Blast Max: also consider
If you’re not sure whether the Ninja Blast Max is the right blender for you, here are two other options to think about.
How I tested the Ninja Blast Max
I used the Ninja Blast Max for a week, making recipes including TechRadar’s standard banana, blueberry, and kale smoothie, which we make with all the personal blenders we test.
I used the blender to tackle ingredients I knew to be particularly tough, including large frozen berries and ice, making sure to select the most appropriate blend setting each time.
I measured the volume of the blender during use with a decibel meter app on my phone.
For more details, see how we test, review, and rate products at TechRadar.
First reviewed April 2025.
https://cdn.mos.cms.futurecdn.net/jNUFnoMMzgW5KMMbBZak6e-1200-80.jpg
Source link
