Magimix Blender Power 4 Review
A fairly big, very powerful blender
Verdict
The Magimix Blender Power 4 may not be the most flexible kitchen gadget, but as a blender it’s a strong combination of style, compact packaging and huge power. Its 1,300W motor should be enough to help it chew through even the toughest foods, while its dishwashable, 1.8 litre glass jug is comfortably big enough for a family’s worth of soup. It’s not the cheapest – or quietest – blender, but if you’re prepared to pay for quality the Blender Power 4 delivers it.
Pros
- Smart, slimline design in metal and glass
- Powerful motor
- Dishwashable components
Cons
- Very loud
- Quite expensive
Key Features
- A medium-large, powerful blenderThis blender has a 1,300W motor and a biggish 1.8-litre jug, so it’s suitable for anything from smoothies and sauces to a batch of soup
- Manual or automatic controlVariable speeds, automatic programmes and a pulse feature
Introduction
Magimix’s Blender Power range includes three models. The Blender Power 4 sits in the middle. It comes with a largish 1.8-litre jug with a secure lid and stopper, but you can also buy accessories, including blend cups for smoothies, and a mill attachment. This blender is available in brushed silver, red, black, or a rather retro cream finish.
You can buy much cheaper blenders than the Blender Power 4, but they’re unlikely to come with this product’s three-year warranty, or its powerful 1300W motor – which is guaranteed for 30 years. The smaller Blender Power 3 offers 1.2 litres and a 1000W motor, while the Blender Power 5XL has a two-litre jug and 1500W, but both only come in silver.
Design and features
- Smart and solid design
- Plastic-free and dishwashable
- A range of programmes
The Blender Power 4 comprises a smart and reasonably compact metal base, with a footprint little bigger than the jug that sits on top of it. Unusually, this is made from thick glass, while its removable blade section is stainless steel. Most blenders have plastic jugs, outside of the KitchenAid Artisan Blender K400, so it’s good to see glass used here.
Only its double-sealed lid and stopper are plastic, although there is a small plastic ring directly under the blade surfaces. All the removable components are dishwashable, which is particularly useful when it comes to getting the blades clean.
With a jug that weighs 1.9kg and potentially double that when full, this perhaps isn’t the best blender for those with reduced mobility or strength in their arms.
There is a large handle at one corner, however, which makes it easier than it could otherwise be to manoeuvre. Over the long term, I’d be almost guaranteed to drop this jug on our tiled kitchen floor, smashing both, but otherwise the choice of glass rules out the staining and scratching you’d expect from plastic after a few years’ use.
Just as importantly, the jug is borosilicate glass, which doesn’t expand or contract much with temperature changes. That means you can fill this blender with virtually anything, from scalding hot soups down to cubes of ice.
Magimix is so confident that the motor, blades and jug are strong enough for the latter that there’s even a specific Ice setting on the control wheel. This large control also offers smoothie, soup and desert settings, alongside variable manual speed control.
The final automatic programme is marked Clean. Add a little warm, soapy water to the jug, start it up, and it’ll loosen up any accumulated gunge from the blades and jug sides, making handwashing much easier.
Good design touches abound in the Blender Power 4. The main jug is calibrated to measure litres and pints, while the clear plastic stopper measures up to 70ml or two flowing ounces. You get a free side scraper and a generous recipe book in the box, plus there’s a free recipe app to go with it. Finally, this blender is Quiet Mark approved – I’ll come back to that.
Performance
- Indomitable and effective
- Noisy
Absolutely nothing stops the Blender Power 4. I tested it with soups, sauces and smoothies, and the results were always evenly blended, with no rogue lumps having escaped the chop.
Whether you’re using the automatic or manual settings, it’s fairly easy to keep an eye on how the blend is progressing, hitting the stop button if you reach the right level of coarseness before a programme is done.
Generally I found this wasn’t necessary. The programmes combine a variety of speeds to ensure food is sucked down into the base and pulverised about as much as you’d want. The side scraper can help when it comes to thicker, stickier blends, but I rarely used it.
One thing I did notice was that the thick glass jug tended to suck heat out of smaller quantities of hot food – if you need something to stay piping hot, you might need to decant it and microwave it briefly, or pre-heat the jug with boiling water.
On the flip side, the Blender Power 4 made short work of standard-sized ice cubes I’d frozen down to -20°C, with the ice programme quickly rendering them into a slush suitable for ice-cold summer drinks.
After a few attempts I managed a passable facsimile of a certain coffee chain’s frozen mocha drink, whereas my kids enjoyed slushy squash. One warning is that you’ll need a lot of ice to get a decent sized drink – it’s also hard to get the last bits out from under the blades.
My one real criticism of the Blender Power 4 is that, despite Quiet Mark approval, it’s rather noisy. The motor itself seems reasonably quiet, but there’s also a gruff noise on top of it that sounds like a bag of gravel in a moped engine. This is conspicuously absent from Magimix’s promotional video, suggesting there may just have been an issue with the example I tested, which otherwise worked perfectly. At full speed, with the blender empty, I measured 68dB from a metre away.
I like the way this blender’s base has no exposed cooling grilles, keeping it smarter and helping protect against spills. Its buttons and dial are easy to use and very easy to read, but the dial could do with more texture or indentations to help you turn it with greasy fingers.
I measured a standby power use of one Watt (1W), along with a brief peak of 600W when crushing ice. More typically, power peaked at around 375W. That’s obviously far short of this blender’s 1300W rating, but motors only draw their peak power when they’re fully loaded. In everyday use it’s unlikely you’d ever really tax this blender’s power plant, but it’s good to know the grunt is there should you need it.
Latest deals
Should you buy it?
You want a high-quality blender: If you’re prepared to pay a premium for a strong, high quality blender, this is a great choice
You’re on a tighter budget: You can get much cheaper blenders that perform as well, although have a plastic jug.
Final Thoughts
If I was putting together a dream kitchen, I’d include the Magimix Blender Power 4. It feels brilliantly made, gets great results, and also seems like it would go on working forever.
That’s backed up by its decent warranty, while Magimix’s 30-year motor cover almost sounds like a challenge for me to find less easily destructible foods. That said, dream kitchens cost real money. If I just wanted to blend smoothies or simple soups, I’d probably look to save money and buy something less well-engineered, such as the Ninja Foodi Power Nutri Blender 3-in-1 with Smart Torque & Auto-iQ 1200W CB350UK or something else from the list of the best blenders.
How we test
Unlike other sites, we test every blender we review thoroughly over an extended period of time. We use industry standard tests to compare features properly. We’ll always tell you what we find. We never, ever, accept money to review a product.
Find out more about how we test in our ethics policy.
Used as our main blender for the review period
We make the same smoothie in all of our blenders so that we can compare the results between different models.
We crush ice in each blender to see how strong it is, and if it crushes evenly.
You might like…
FAQs
This is a great blender, big enough to cope with most foods and powerful enough to get through anything. Magimix tends to back up its products with a decent warranty, and the Blender Power 4 is no exception. You get three years, with 30 years for the motor. There’s also a guarantee that spare parts will be available for 30 years. You’re unlikely to get that on a cheaper rival.
Yes. It’ll comfortably reduce ice cubes to a slush.
The company makes a range of food appliances. The Blender Power 4 reviewed here is just a blender, but Magimix also makes general-purpose food processors, which double up as blenders.
Full specs
Editorial independence
Editorial independence means being able to give an unbiased verdict about a product or company, with the avoidance of conflicts of interest. To ensure this is possible, every member of the editorial staff follows a clear code of conduct.
Professional conduct
We also expect our journalists to follow clear ethical standards in their work. Our staff members must strive for honesty and accuracy in everything they do. We follow the IPSO Editors’ code of practice to underpin these standards.
Editorial independence
Editorial independence means being able to give an unbiased verdict about a product or company, with the avoidance of conflicts of interest. To ensure this is possible, every member of the editorial staff follows a clear code of conduct.
Professional conduct
We also expect our journalists to follow clear ethical standards in their work. Our staff members must strive for honesty and accuracy in everything they do. We follow the IPSO Editors’ code of practice to underpin these standards.
