Vitamix A3300 Ascent Series Smart Blender Review
Are you looking for a smart blender that can easily handle your blending tasks, even tough or easy tasks it can do? I think you should consider the Vitamix a3300 Ascent Series Smart Blender.
Why is it recommended? Because it’s one of the most powerful and popular blenders in the market.
After spending countless hours to check its quality and every feature that may increase or decrease popularity.
So in this article, we’ll share with you everything about Vitamix a3300 that is very important to know before buying it. We’ll even tell you why this model is important for your kitchen and what it can do for you.
No doubt it’s an expensive machine compared to other brands then why you’re investing in it.
So if you want to know the answers to all of these questions, then please stay connected with us.
Reasons to Buy
- One of the best blenders for making smoothies
- Easy to use and Clean
- Quiet blender compare to other Vitamix blenders
- Built quality is also perfect
Reasons to Avoid
- Control panel should have advance features
Overview Vitamix a3300 Ascent Series Smart Blender
The Vitamix a3300 Ascent Series Smart Blender is a part of the latest series of Vitamix blenders. This is a well built and high end quality machine in the market. Unlike other similar models that are the part of old Vitamix series and other juicer blenders in the market.
This machine is equipped with a 2.2 horsepower motor which is considered a powerful motor. So, it can crush ice within a few seconds and freeze fruits.
The Vitamix blender is designed with a beautiful and user-friendly touch screen that allows you to operate it with a simple touch. We'll tell you in detail how you can operate it later on.
Also, you can operate this juicer via mobile app, wow, that means it can be operated with some distance.
So, dear readers this is a short overview of Vitamix A3300, now we’re going to talk about each feature in detail so that our readers can understand the pros and cons of it.
Overall Design & Size
I've been on the hunt for a high-powered blender to make smoothies, soups and more for awhile now. As an avid home cook, having a machine that can puree and blend with ease is a must. After lots of research, I decided to invest in the Vitamix A3300 Ascent Series Smart Blender.
At first glance, this blender is certainly a beast. It's one of the larger countertop models I've seen at just over 17 inches tall. But with its heavy-duty motor and 64 oz container, I knew it could handle any blending task I threw at it. The wide 7.9 inch base provides stability too. Despite its size, the Ascent A3300 doesn't take up too much space thanks to a handy cord storage compartment underneath.
I was impressed by the solid construction from the get-go. The metal base and thick plastic casing feel very durable. Even lifting the nearly 12 pound machine doesn't feel straining. Best of all, cleanup is a breeze since both the container and lid are dishwasher safe. No more scrubbing thick smoothie residue!
The see-through lid allows me to keep an eye on my blending process. I love that I can also remove the center cap to easily add ingredients mid-blend. And with the handy tamper tool, I can make sure even the thickest mixtures are completely smooth without stopping.
I feel like I made the right choice for my needs. The Vitamix Ascent A3300's powerful motor and extra-large capacity let me blend up anything from nut milks to hot soups without issue. It's definitely an investment, but worth it for the quality that will last.
Jar Capacity & Material
The Vitamix A3300 Ascent Series Smart Blender comes with a large jar that holds up to 64 ounces. This is great for making big batches of smoothies, soups, or any other recipes. The capacity allows you to blend enough for a family or a group of people at once, so you don’t have to make multiple rounds.
The jar is made from BPA-free plastic, ensuring that your food stays safe from harmful chemicals. BPA-free plastic is a popular choice for kitchen appliances because it's durable and safe for everyday use.
Another great feature of the jar is that it's dishwasher-safe unlike Vitamix 5200 and Vitamix 5300. You can easily place both the jar and the lid in the dishwasher after you're done blending. This makes cleaning up quick and hassle-free, so you can spend more time enjoying your drinks or meals and less time scrubbing.
There is no additional jar included with the Vitamix A3300, but the main 64-ounce jar is sufficient for most blending needs.
LID Design
This Vitamix blender's lid is meticulously designed for secure and efficient blending. Made from transparent material, it allows clear visibility of the contents inside the jar. You can easily monitor your blending tasks. The lid has two sturdy clips that hook under the jar's lip, creating an airtight seal. This prevents any spillage or leakage during operation.
The middle part of the lid can be conveniently removed. This allows you to add ingredients, use the tamper for thorough mixing, or use it as a small measuring cup for precise ingredient measurements. This thoughtful design enhances the blender's functionality and versatility. It caters to a wide range of blending needs.
Motor Built Quality
The Vitamix A3300 Ascent Series Smart Blender has excellent motor build quality, ensuring both durability and performance. At the heart of the blender is a powerful motor that is built to last. It features a metal transmission base, which is a key part of what makes the motor so strong and reliable. The metal base ensures that the motor can handle tough blending tasks without wearing down over time.
To give the blender a sleek and premium look, the metal transmission base is covered by a sturdy plastic casing. This plastic outer shell not only adds to the overall design but also helps protect the motor and internal components from dust, moisture, and everyday wear and tear. The combination of metal and plastic provides both strength and aesthetic appeal.
The jar, which sits atop the motor, is made of high-quality plastic. It feels strong and durable, capable of withstanding regular use without cracking or breaking. This sturdy design helps the blender stand up to heavy-duty blending, whether you're crushing ice, blending tough vegetables, or making nut butter.
Another thoughtful design feature is the four small rubber pads at the bottom of the motor body. These rubber pads help to slightly elevate the motor off the ground, reducing direct contact with the countertop. This not only helps protect your surfaces but also minimizes vibrations during use, making the blender more stable and quieter while operating.
Blade Shape & Speed
What stands out to me is its variable speed dial with 19 incremental settings between 1,400 and 22,700 RPM. This level of precision blending allows you to fine-tune textures exactly how you want. Whether you're making smoothies, sauces or nut butters, the A3300's powerful 1,640 watt motor pulverizes ingredients into total liquidness.
Safety is also a priority, with fixed blades that you shouldn't attempt to remove. I appreciate the reassurance of long-term durability. Cleanup is simple too since the container and blades are dishwasher safe.
Since getting people this Vitamix powerful machine, they've been amazed by how it turns any combo of fruits, veggies or extras into perfectly velvety smoothies that go down so easily. The variable speeds let you experiment to find my ideal texture. It'll become an invaluable tool in you kitchen that helps you to prepare quick, nutritious meals on a daily basis.
Performance of Vitamix a3300 Ascent Series Smart Blender
Making Soups
The Vitamix A3300 Ascent Series Smart Blender is an excellent choice for making soups. One of its standout features is the ability to handle hot ingredients. Whether you’re blending freshly cooked vegetables or creating a soup base from scratch, this blender can easily handle the heat. It’s designed to process hot foods without any issues, so you can blend directly from the stovetop without waiting for ingredients to cool down.
This smart blender is particularly great for making smooth, velvety soups. It can blend even the toughest ingredients, like fibrous leafy greens or chunks of broccoli, into a creamy texture. No matter how thick or rough your ingredients are, the Vitamix ascent blender ensures everything is blended evenly. This makes it perfect for soups, sauces, and purees that need a smooth finish without any chunks or uneven textures.
Cleaning the Vitamix blender after making soups is also simple. You can either clean it by hand, which is easy thanks to its smooth surfaces and design, or pop the jar and lid into the dishwasher for hassle-free cleaning. Either way, the cleaning process is quick, allowing you to focus more on enjoying your meal than worrying about a long cleanup routine.
In a soup-making test, the Vitamix A3300 scored an impressive 96 points out of 100, just like its sibling model, the Vitamix A2500. This high score reflects how well it performs, ensuring consistently smooth soups and sauces every time.
Testing on Fibrous Ingredients
The real magic of the Vitamix A3300 Ascent Series Smart Blender lies in its handling of fibrous ingredients such as kale, spinach, and wheatgrass. Blending small amounts of these greens can often be challenging, as they tend to cling to the sides of the jar rather than flowing downwards into the blades.
However, I discovered that simply blending for an additional 30 seconds with the Vitamix A3300 Ascent Series Smart Blender completely solves this problem.
The result is remarkably smooth kale and spinach smoothies that are not only vibrant, glassy green, but also silky in texture. You’d never believe that these drinks contained whole leaves just moments before. This blender handles fibrous ingredients efficiently at full capacity too, effortlessly creating a smooth puree even with large quantities of tough greens like kale.
Testing on Ice Crushing
I was eager to test out how well this blender could pulverize cubes. Let me tell you, this blender passed with flying frozen colors.
I started by dropping a handful of ice cubes into the blender jar and engaging the highest speed setting. Almost immediately, the cubes began shattering into smaller and smaller pieces. But I got even better results when I added the pulse function into the mix. A few short pulses had the ice transformed into light and fluffy snow.
The uniform crushed ice the A3300 blender by Vitamix produces is perfect for cocktails, smoothies, or just drinking straight. No more biting into unevenly sized chunks or enduring that watered down effect from partially melted cubes. This blender churns out feathery flakes of ice so finely crushed you'd think a yeti had a hand in it.
Nut Butter
For the longest time, I just bought my nut butters pre-made from the store. But after getting my hands on a Vitamix A3300 blender, I'll never go back to store-bought again. Homemade nut butter is surprisingly simple and satisfying to make with this powerhouse blender.
All it takes is dumping raw nuts of your choice into the jar, hitting the highest speed setting, and blending. This powerful blender's intense power smoothly pulverizes nuts into butter in just a few minutes. To get things moving from the corners, I give the tamper a few swirls every 30 seconds or so. But other than that, it's a totally hands-free process.
The result is incredibly creamy and spreadable nut butter that puts store varieties to shame. My almond and cashew butters come out perfectly smooth and creamy thanks to the A3300's thorough blending. No grainy texture or oil separation to be found!
Easy to use
The Vitamix A3300 Ascent Series Smart Blender offers a versatile and easy-to-use control system, making it suitable for various blending tasks. First, it features a simple on/off switch, which allows you to easily power the blender on or off. This switch is convenient for quickly stopping or starting your blending process without any fuss.
One key feature is the speed dial. While the blender doesn’t come with preset speed levels, the speed dial allows you to manually adjust the blending speed. You have full control over how fast or slow the blender runs, which is useful when blending different ingredients. For example, you can start slow to break up larger chunks and then increase the speed to create a smoother blend.
Additionally, this Vitamix Ascent Series blender has pulse and turbo modes. These modes give you even more control over the blending process. The pulse mode is great for quick bursts of power, which can be helpful for chopping or mixing ingredients without fully blending them. Turbo mode provides an extra boost of speed for tougher tasks, such as crushing ice or blending thicker ingredients.
For those who like to blend hot ingredients, this Vitamix ascent series blender supports hot blending. This means you can blend soups, sauces, and other hot liquids without worrying about damaging the blender. It's designed to handle the heat safely.
The blender also features a blending time indicator and a programmable timer. This is where the '+' and '–' buttons come in handy. You can use these buttons to set and adjust the timer according to your needs. Whether you’re blending a smoothie for 30 seconds or a soup for a minute, the programmable timer allows for precise control. Once you’ve set the timer, simply press the start/stop button to begin or halt the blending process.
Although the Vitamix A3300 doesn't come with built-in blending programs, it has Bluetooth compatibility. This feature allows you to connect the blender to the Vitamix Perfect Blend app, which unlocks a variety of pre-programmed presets. By using the app, you can access blending options like 'Smoothies', 'Hot Soups', 'Frozen Desserts', 'Nut Butters', 'Dressings', 'Baby Food', and many more. These presets make the blender even more versatile, offering automatic blending for specific recipes.
Without the app, there are no pre-set programs directly on the blender itself. However, with the manual controls and app integration, you still have a lot of flexibility for different blending tasks.
Easy to Clean
The Vitamix A3300 Ascent Series Smart Blender is incredibly easy to clean, which is one of the reasons it scored 77 points in cleaning tests. After you’re done blending, most food debris can be removed with a simple rinse. Just run some water through the jar to get rid of any loose particles.
For a deeper clean, you can fill the jar with warm water and a bit of dish soap. After that, run the blender on high for a minute or so. This helps remove any leftover food, especially after making smoothies, soups, or sauces. It’s a quick and effective way to get your blender sparkling clean without much effort.
If you’ve been blending stickier ingredients, like almond butter or thicker mixtures, you might need to run the soap and water mix for a little longer. Sticky food can be a bit tougher to clean, but with an extended blending time, it will come off easily.
Another handy feature is that the Vitamix Ascent A3300 can be connected to its companion app, which includes a cleaning preset. This preset takes the guesswork out of cleaning and makes the process even more convenient. The app automatically adjusts the cleaning cycle for you, so all you have to do is press a button, and the blender will clean itself.
For even easier cleanup, the blender jar is dishwasher-safe. This means you can place the jar in the dishwasher after use, saving you time and effort. Whether you choose to clean it by hand or let the dishwasher handle it, this blender is designed to make cleanup as easy as possible.
With all these options, keeping your blender clean is simple, whether you're in a hurry or dealing with tougher food residues.
Noise Level
The Vitamix A3300 Ascent Series Smart Blender produces about 92.4 decibels of noise at its maximum speed. While this may seem high, it’s actually not that loud when compared to other full-size blenders. This moderate noise level is one of the reasons why it earned 73 points in noise tests.
Many high-performance blenders tend to be much louder, but this particular blender manages to keep the noise relatively under control. For instance, other models from Vitamix, like the Explorian E310 and the Explorian E520, are known to be much noisier when blending at full speed. These models can be more disruptive in a kitchen setting.
Even though the Vitamix A3300 isn’t completely quiet, it strikes a good balance between powerful performance and reasonable noise levels. You can still expect it to make some sound while blending tough ingredients or running at high speeds, but it won’t be overwhelmingly loud compared to other blenders in its category.
This makes it a suitable choice for those who want a strong blender without dealing with excessive noise during use.
Safety Features
It's always good to know a blender has some smarts built in to protect itself. With the A3300, Vitamix added sensors that keep an eye on the motor temperature and speed.
If things ever start to overheat or spin out of control, those sensors will kick in and automatically shut the whole unit down. That gives everything a chance to cool off before you try blending again.
The auto-shutdown period lasts around 15 to 30 minutes, so don't try using it right away if it cuts out on you. Just set it aside and let the internal components reset before giving it another whirl.
Peace of mind features like these are nice for catching potential issues before they escalate. Overall it helps maintain the quality and longevity of the machine too.
So if safety is a concern, you can feel good knowing this Vitamix has extra safeguards built right in under the hood.
Downsides
One thing to note is that you'll need to use the Vitamix app to access the preset cleaning cycles. They aren't built right into the blender itself.
Now, I can see how that might be a tiny bit annoying if you're in a rush to clean up. Having to pull out your phone isn't always convenient.
However, the flip side is that this blender does give you handy physical shortcut buttons for common recipes like smoothies, spreads and soups. Not too shabby to have those at your fingertips without tech involved.
Another thing is that this blender is on the louder side compared to other models. Tests have found it can get up to 90 decibels while blending. That's definitely louder than many other kitchen appliances.
However, it's important to realize this Vitamix is actually one of the quieter options within the brand itself. The stainless steel casing helps reduce some of the sound too.
Is it the absolute quietest blender out there? No. But the noise shouldn't be a complete dealbreaker either. Many people find the power and performance of Vitamix worth dealing with a bit more sound.
As long as you're not blending super early in the morning or late at night, the volume probably won't be a major issue. It blends smoothly without being too disruptive. So don't count this one out solely because of the noise factor.
Comparison with other Models
Is it Worth Buying?
This blender really can do it all! With its big 64 oz container, the A3300 handles everything from smoothies and shakes to hot soups without breaking a sweat.
I love that it can go from crushing ice to the finest powder in seconds. Snow-like ice is perfect for cool summer drinks. And the multiple speed settings mean you get total control over texture - whether you want silky or chunky.
Being able to make nut butter and hummus in the same machine is so convenient. Talk about saving kitchen space! And cleanup is a breeze since all the parts pop right in the dishwasher.
With the Vitamix, you know you're investing in a blender that will last for years and tackle any recipe you throw at it. Versatility is huge for me since I like experimenting with different healthy meals and snacks. This one would be a real workhorse in my kitchen.
If you want a solid all-around machine you can rely on, the A3300 is a great option.