Hamilton Beach 2 Speed Hand Blender In-depth Review
Overall Verdict
This Hamilton Beach 2 speed hand blender is by far the worst immersion blender we’ve tested. It feels cheap, looks flimsy, and is not easy to use. Although it did a fine job of preparing baby food, its 225-watt motor wasn’t strong enough to churn through solid ingredients like frozen fruits or raw root veggies.
We were also very disappointed to find that none of the included accessories was actually effective. As cheap as it is, buying this blender is just pouring your money down the drain.
Things We Like
- It can be used for pureeing cooked vegetables, fresh fruits, and baby food.
- Its easy-grip design allows for flexible control
- All the accessories are dishwasher safe
Things We Don’t Like
- It isn’t powerful enough for many blending tasks
- The two included attachments are almost useless
- It isn’t durable due to the poorly-constructed design
The Hamilton Beach 59765 has a low price tag yet comes with a wide range of blending accessories. On paper at least, that will help you to perform a greater variety of tasks. With a straightforward design, it should also be a user-friendly immersion blender.
After our course of hands-on testing, however, this machine turned out to be neither practical nor efficient to use. If you have the budget, we recommend going for higher-powered blenders — this Hamilton Beach simply causes more trouble than it’s worth.
5.7 Performance
The Hamilton Beach is designed to be an affordable solution for heavy-duty tasks, but in practice, it ends up a flimsy stick of plastic with low efficiency and inconsistent performance, especially when it comes to processing solid ingredients. If you’re expecting its portability and cheapness to make it fun to use, then you might be surprised to learn its performance was at best dreary in almost all of our tests. For superior alternatives, we recommend considering the Braun MultiQuick-5, Vitamix 5-speed, or cordless Chefman blenders.
8.0 Hot Soup Purée
In this test, the Hamilton Beach produced an acceptably smooth puree, but the outcome wasn’t any better than those produced by other immersion blenders we’ve found for under $40. It was blended evenly but we still noticed a lot of tiny veggie chunks left behind after straining.
5.3 Frozen Fruit Smoothie
Of all the blenders we tested, this Hamilton Beach took the longest to complete this task. It was such a poor performer that had a very hard time processing frozen fruits and couldn’t entirely liquefy kale. In the end, we were left behind with a lumpy icy drink and worse still, a bunch of large noticeable fibrous pieces remained unprocessed.
Failed Mayonnaise
Making mayonnaise with this blender’s whisk attachment was a total failure. Even when we added the oil very slowly to the yolks, there was no way that the blender could form a proper emulsion. Instead of a smooth spread, we ended up with a watery mess. As such, we awarded it no points for this test.
6.8 Almond Milk
Using this Hamilton Beach to make nut milk may not be such a good idea: In our test, it left us with a coarse grind and couldn’t pull all the ingredients into its blades without our intervention. That’s why we had to constantly stir with the blending wand to ensure everything was incorporated. This also meant that, due to the machine’s poor head suction, we would end up getting splattered with smoothie every single time our hand moved.
At certain points, the almonds somehow even got stuck in the blade guard’s holes, requiring us to stop and dislodge them. This remains the most frustrating blending experience that we’ve ever had.
5.0 Whipped Egg-Whites
Surprisingly, this blender’s whisk attachment did a good job of stiffening the egg white. When beating, it provided enough force to stretch out the egg’s proteins which then bonded with each other and formed a stable network around the tiny air bubbles created through the beating action.
However, strengthening that network for a good stiff peak can be a lengthy process. The Hamilton Beach took more than one minute - compared with others, that's longer than the average. Having to spend a few more minutes blending is no big deal, but the prolonged operation will cause the motor to overheat, thus impairing its durability and your cooking enjoyment.
6.0 Design
Efficiency aside, the Hamilton Beach’s compact footprint makes it suitable for those who have limited storage space and want to prepare small batches of puree at a time. Still, it is so poorly constructed that we couldn’t consider it a reliable blender. Our Hamilton actually broke right after it finished the final test.
In the Box
- Motor body
- Blending shaft
- Whisk attachment
- Food processor
- User manual
The Hamilton Beach 59765 set has five pieces, including a motor body, a blending shaft, a user manual, and two extra attachments (a whisk and a food processor). It doesn’t come with a beaker, but you can easily purchase a decent one for under $15.
Dimensions
This Hamilton Beach looks compact on our counter and takes up less space than any of the full-sized blenders we’ve had. Its blending shaft and main motor body can be separated so you can easily store them when not in use. It also feels balanced in our hands with an ideal weight for most home cooks. For the most part, we agree it is quite easy to maneuver this machine in a mixing beaker.
6.0 Build Quality
Compared to other low-range blenders we purchased, this Hamilton Beach is similar in features, operation, and capabilities, but it isn’t as good on every front due to its poorly-built construction.
Made of low-range plastic, the motor body takes on food stains and discoloration over time while the inner core is very breakable. The two thin plastic tabs that help connect the blending attachment to the main housing also leave much to be desired. With use, they will possibly snap, thus rendering your blender useless. Another word of caution: this machine has a tendency to overheat like it is burning up.
Speed and Controls
The machine has two buttons: the power button operates the blender at the normal speed and the turbo button provides a temporary speed boost. Both buttons are unresponsive to gentle presses requiring considerable pressure to be activated. During the more prolonged procedures, we experienced challenging and painful blending.
6.5 Blending Shaft
At only 6.9 inches, the blending shaft is quite short and may not be suitable to immerse in your deep pot. With a sharp, metal blade guard, it seriously damaged our beaker and was incapable of reducing head suction in all of its tests. The 2-pronged blade is designed flimsily. It looks inferior and has a shorter length compared to other low-range blenders. This results in quite coarse blends and longer working time.
0.0 Beaker: Not Included
10 Power Cord
This blender has a 2-prong, 5.1. feet power cord that plugs into any standard power supply rated to 120V AC.
Extra Accessories: Whisk Attachment
After two rounds of testing, we found this attachment is completely inefficient. Measuring only 4.3 inches long, it is comparatively short and its wires are too stiff to provide enough ‘bounce’. We certainly wouldn't recommend using this whisk.
Extra Accessories: Food Processor
We haven’t tested this attachment on a specific recipe, but upon activating it without any contents, we found it to be laced with excessive rattles and vibrations, which fatigued our hands over time.
6.4 Usability
When we talk about ease of blending, we mean the immersion blender in question has practical controls, good cleanability, and a user-friendly design —one that allows you to operate your device with minimum distraction. That said, none of the Hamilton Beach 59765 features meet such criteria. In spite of its simple design, it doesn’t work as comfortably as we’d like.
5.8 Ease of Use
The Hamilton Beach 59765 is not easy to use; it often feels a bit brittle during even simple tasks, and that isn’t indicative of all low-priced immersion blenders. It is also more of a pain to use with a violent shaking motor and unresponsive controls.
Furthermore, we found our machine got extremely hot when it was working at high speeds toward an extended blending time. It is unclear if this issue is likely to shorten the blender’s lifespan, but it will surely bring you a
few minutes of discomfort.
8.0 Blade Assembly
To set up this blender, the attachment must be rotated to a specific alignment to lock into place with the main housing. So far, we haven't found any difficulty in doing so, since both these two pieces are clearly marked with padlock icons, eliminating our guesswork for the correct alignment.
6.5 Handling
Compared with others, this handle is smaller and less comfortable to hold. While it fits okay in our small hands, it cannot ensure a stable, secure grip due to its slippery surface.
8.0 Cleanability
Removing all the food tailings from the blades’ backsides was pretty frustrating. Due to the restricted space between the blade and its guard, we couldn’t get our fingers in for scrubbing.