BLACK+DECKER Kitchen Wand Immersion Blender

If you want to skip reading, buy this Black & Decker (B&D) cordless immersion blender. You can spend more, but I don't think you'll find better. I have an All Clad cordless immersion blender and it "was" very good. Long story short the All Clad, and even its warranty replacement died in under two years. I had to find a new blender, but I'm not spending $200 or even $80, and it had to be truly reliable. Over the years, I've owned many B&D products. I admit that I kind of skipped over them and bought other brands when looking for a cordless stick blender. I should have known better. B&D has been in the cordless game for a long time, they invented the Dustbuster after all. From my experience, their tools are well-designed and high quality, and I probably never gave them enough credit for that. This B&D "Kitchen Wand" as they call it, is a legitimate, powerful cordless immersion blender. Ergonomically, everything is well-thought-out. It's safety switch is intuitive and easy to use. You press the safety switch with your palm between your thumb and forefinger while grasping the handle, and operate the on-off switch in front with your fingertips. That's it. There's even a pause when starting up that helps you avoid messes at the start. It has some heft too due to the batteries, but it is well-balanced. To assemble, just insert the stick end to the motor and twist to the right until it clicks firmly. The non-stick blade guard nestles under the bell and is easy to take off if you don't need it. The charging cradle is convenient because you can leave the motor on it's stand continuously without fear of over charging. They claim it has up to a 30-minute run-time without re-charging, but that would depend on the load. It also comes with a 2-year warranty. Like every other immersion blender, you can run it continuously for a couple of minutes, and then you have to let it cool down. I've run this blender for two minutes straight and it barely got warm. This B&D stick blender is a very solid deal at under $50. You can pay more, but there's no reason to. If you still use a corded model, you need to try this. The convenience of cordless blending can't be beat. Update 5/20/2024: I've had a lot of time to fully test and use this blender. I'm still very positive on it, especially the durability. As far as the power, it's not nearly as powerful as a quality corded model and even less powerful than my All Clad cordless. It can handle ice, but you have to take it easy, or it will overwhelm the motor and get stuck. The one thing that it doesn't do well enough is based on the bell design. It doesn't create a strong vortex to circulate everything, so you have to move it up and down. I've had other immersion blenders that I could just put on the bottom, and they would draw all the ingredients to the bottom. The Black & Decker doesn't do that. Now given all of these negative comments, I don't want to give the wrong impression, I still like it a lot. I would have changed it to 4.5 stars, as it still sits at the ready on my kitchen counter, and I use it all the time.