Blend Tec vs Vitamix
The BlendTEc is amazing. I will explain why I bought and my experience so far below. First, Blend Tec and Vitamix are in a separate class from other blenders so I will only discuss these two. A family member owns Vitamix and they love it. They use it twice daily mostly for fruit and vegetable smoothies. After seeing how good tasting and healthy the smoothies were, I decided to get my own blender. When researching blend tec vs vitamix, the selling points of Vitamix are the tamper and the 7 year warranty. The tamper is useful if you add a lot of ice to your smoothies or anything thick enough where gravity/the vortex will not pull the food into the blade. I haven't owned my BlendTec for anywhere close to 7 years so I can't speak to reliability. The advantage of BlendTec is that you can set the cycle, walk out of the room and let it run. Both blenders are loud enough that I doubt it's healthy to listen to them everyday. With the vitamix, you have to stand next to the blender and operate the tamper and the speed control. With the BlendTec, you select a cycle, walk out the room and the machine automatically shuts off in approx 3 minutes. Saving myself the hearing damage or least discomfort is worth choosing the blend tec over vitamix. I make smoothies with half water so a tamper is not necessary. I should also disclose that I bought the BlendTec with a 4" blade instead of 2" and I presume this helps it blend better. Click here for more info. [...]

exactly what i wanted
if i were oprah, i would buy this blender for everyone i know. it does what it is supposed to do. its easy to clean. the same blenders are used at starbucks and jamba juice.(I did not know this when i purchased it, but like recognizing the familiar purr of a certain car, i can hear the blendtec motor whilst waiting in line)

its awesome. i love it.

I use mine daily...
Amazon removed my link - so if you go to YouTube and search for "Blendtec Blender Vs. Vitamix Blender, episode #316" you will see the video I linked to...

I was leaning towards the VitaMix, but after seeing the above video I went with Blendtec and I'm glad I did. I couldn't be more happier with my purchase.

Blendtec has speed up and down buttons, and I find they can be just as responsive as the dial on the vita-mix. I would prefer the feel of the dial, but the pulse button, the ease in cleaning the flat control pad, the fact that it's powerful enough to not need a tamper and has several automatic modes that really do work well more than make up for the lack of a tactile dial. The secrete is the larger carafe with the 4" blade as demoed in the video - it really does work very, very well. I use mine daily, and even when I forget to thaw out the frozen fruit for a smoothie, I can still blend when other blenders would either bog down and quit, or simply cavitate and not blend.

Yes it's loud, and yes it's pricy compared to some other blenders on the market - but in less than two minutes I can make a smoothie (unattended!) - either fruit or green, it doesn't matter. I'd still be messing around with a plunger with the other guys or scraping, shaking and re-blending for three to four times the amount of time. It's worth the price difference for the convenience factor alone.

The real secret is the larger carafe with the 4" - I haven't had any issues with the Blendtec and the larger carafe. Highly recommended!

And one other thing vs. vita-mix, with two blades instead of four and a much wider bottom, it's allot easier to get product out of the bottom of the container. Permanently mounted blades, which I thought I wouldn't like, turned out to be a plus. A little hot water, a drop of dishwashing soap and a few pulses and that's all that is required for cleanup.

Overpriced + costly maintenance
We've had our blender for nearly 5 years, but won't be patronizing K-TEC, including their BlendTec product line, anymore. The pitcher has a gear fitting on the bottom that tends to wear out every 2 years. They blamed us the first time because we had put the pitcher in the dish washer a couple of times. Thinking they were an honest business, we coughed up the 0 to have them ship a new pitcher. Around 2 years later, the exact same problem started happening. This time they admitted that their pitchers only last about 2 years with regular use.

Here are the symptoms:
* Grey powder between the pitcher and the base. That's powder from the metal shaft in the pitcher grinding up.
* Sharp grinding noise at the beginning right before the blades really spin.

Eventually the shaft fitting wears down completely and won't work anymore, requiring you to spend another 0 or more (as prices rise) every other year for a new pitcher.

Personally, I find this to be a total rip-off when old blenders that cost a fraction of the price and made in the late 70's are still able to work (albeit without the same amount of torque) for 30 years and this one can't even last 3!

Stay away from K-Tec and BlendTec and tell your friends to look for alternatives.

Arguably one of the best blenders, but value debatable
I've had this Blendtec model for just shy of a year, and use it 3-4 times a week. I primarily use it for protein shakes, including frozen bananas, and green shakes, with hard to pulverize leafy greens. I also use it for making baby food including sweet potatoes. I'm up to 168 cycles and it has performed great in all of them. Based on my experience, below is a summary of the positives and negatives:

Positives:
Compared to a fairly high end Oster blender I own, the Blendtec does a significantly better job blending up both frozen bananas and leafy greens. The Oster took longer, left greens in parsley size pieces, and added a lot of air to the shake. The Blendtec minimizes extra air and gets the job done quickly. For baby food, there simply is no comparison since a regular blender would croak trying to blend up 3 sweet potatoes.

Since I use the blender in the mornings, cleanup was a key consideration. It is very simple with the Blendtec since there are only three parts to clean and the blade is fixed. Sometimes I put water and soap into the jar and blend for a few seconds. But more often I just use water and a brush and it's done in a few seconds.

The blender is fairly compact considering its power, and fits under standard cabinets. The new jar is BPA free and doesn't scratch easily based on my experience.

Negatives:
It is fairly noisy as others have noted. If you've heard a burr coffee grinder, I'd say it's a notch above that depending on what one is blending. It could wake people in the house up, and will make the TV hard to hear, but it's 20-30 seconds a day so I think the noise issue has been blown out of proportion.

The build quality is fine and I haven't had any issues. For the price, Blendtec could use a little bit higher end materials on the base but it works.

The biggest negative to me, and why I rated it 4 stars, is the value. It is simply hard to justify spending 8X what a decent Oster or other mainstream blender would cost. While the motor and parts are higher quality, there is no way they are 8X. Clearly there is a lot of margin built into this as well as a large marketing budget. For me though, it came down to getting higher performance and unfortunately, there are not a lot of choices other than Vitamix. I didn't like the size or style of the Vitamix and it is even more expensive.

In summary, I have no regrets about my purchase and continue to enjoy using the Blendtec. It is a premium product at a premium price.