Ninja Detect Duo Power Blender Pro Blender Review

It's a big full-size blender, like the Ninja Professional Plus Blender DUO with Auto-iQ, and it's best stored on a counter instead of in a cupboard. It's tall, but you can remove the jar for easier storage.

The Ninja Detect Duo Power Blender Pro has a good build quality. This blender has feet under the motor base that help keep it in place while blending. The jars and blade assemblies feel sturdy, and the blender won't operate unless a jar is docked. The blender, including the gears on both the jars and base, is made of plastic. The plastic doesn't feel cheap, but it doesn't have a premium, high-quality feel either. The speed dial is easy to use but feels a little wobbly since it has some give if you pull on it.

The main pitcher has a 72oz total capacity, with a max liquid capacity of 64oz, so it can hold enough for multiple servings. Unlike the Ninja Detect Power Blender Pro, it comes with a pair of personal jars. They have a 24oz capacity and a max liquid line at 21oz. If you're looking for a similar blender with food processing accessories, the Ninja Detect Kitchen System Power Blender comes with the same 72oz pitcher, a 24oz personal jar, and a 64oz food processing bowl.

The jars and lids are top-rack dishwasher-safe. The manufacturer says not to use a heated dry cycle.

It comes with a removable blade assembly for the main jar. It's shaped like a column, with six sharp blades attached around it. There's also a separate blade assembly for the personal jars, which attach to the jars like a lid. Both blade assemblies are dishwasher-safe.

The lid for the main jar doesn't have a removable center piece for using a tamper or adding more ingredients, but it has a spout at one corner with a cover, which you can open when you want to serve drinks from the jar. There's also a pair of to-go lids for the personal jars, which let you use the jars as travel cups. They're easy to attach and remove from the jars.

The power cord is long enough to reach a nearby outlet. However, unlike older Ninja models, there's nowhere to wrap it up behind or under the blender.

• Motor base
• 72oz main pitcher and blade assembly
• Main pitcher lid
• 2x personal jar 24oz
• 2x to-go lids
• Blade assembly for personal jars
• Manuals

The Ninja Detect Duo Power Blender Pro is fantastic for small batches of fibrous ingredients. You can use the 'BlendSense' feature, which is meant to automatically adjust the blending speed and length, to quickly process something like a single-serve smoothie with kale. The result is a very smooth blend with virtually no unprocessed specks left over, so it'll do an outstanding job with most smoothie recipes.

It does a decent job with big batches of fibrous ingredients. If you fill the main jar to full capacity with a recipe like kale smoothies, the result is a uniform blend with some unprocessed bits left over. To get the best results, you need to continue to blend manually for a few minutes after the 'BlendSense' program ends, although that will depend on your recipe. The Braun TriForce Power Pro JB9041BK is another full-size blender sold with a personal jar, and it does a better job of processing big batches of fibrous ingredients.

It's fantastic for crushing ice. It has no issue crushing a batch of 12 ice cubes into snow-like crushed ice, which is typical for full-size Ninja blenders. The 'BlendSense' automatic blending feature works well here, although you may want to stop the blender early to avoid over-blending and melting some of the ice.

It's superb for making nut butter. If you use the 'BlendSense' feature followed by a few minutes of blending on low/medium speed, you only need to stop the blender once to scrape any ingredients off the jar walls. The result is very smooth, spreadable nut butter without a huge amount of effort.

It's a loud blender. Standing next to it for a few minutes is irritating compared to quieter models like the Ninja Professional Plus Blender DUO with Auto-iQ.

There are ten speed settings available when using the main jar, but there's not a huge difference between the slowest and fastest speeds. It has a slow maximum blending speed with the main jar, like most full-size Ninja blenders. However, you get faster speeds using the personal jars: 14600 at minimum and 18800 at maximum, which likely helps smoothly process fibrous ingredients.

This blender has 'Detect' in the name because of its 'BlendSense' program, which the manufacturer says allows it to detect what you're blending and adjust the bender's performance accordingly. The dial lights up as it's 'detecting', and then the blender blends automatically, displaying the remaining blending time on the dial. This feature is pretty similar to the brand's 'Auto-iQ', which is supposed to automatically blend and pulse depending on the recipe. However, auto-iQ programs have a set length, and the blending time isn't always displayed.

Different blending programs are available depending on whether you're using the main jar or one of the personal jars. The 'BlendSense' program is available with both jar sizes, but the rest are only available with one jar or the other. Which jar you use also affects how many manual blending speed settings are available. When using manual mode, the blender will run for 60 seconds at the selected speed before stopping automatically. There's also a dedicated pulse mode button on the control panel's right side.

• BlendSense
• Large chop (10 seconds)
• Small chop (10 seconds)
• Mince (13 seconds)
• Manual speed settings: 10

• BlendSense
• Low (10 seconds)
• Medium (10 seconds)
• High (10 seconds)

The Ninja Detect Duo Power Blender Pro isn't easy to clean by hand. The main blade assembly is very sharp, so you must handle it carefully to avoid cutting yourself. A hole in the bottom of the blade column also tends to trap food, and it's hard to reach unless you use a brush.