Average Reviews:
(More customer reviews)Bottom line: If you're serious about juicing, give this a pass. But, for light-duty use it has some merit provided that you can live with a couple of design shortcomings.
As you can probably surmise from the price point, this is not a "throw anything in it and have it come out juice" type of appliance. It works best on the softer, juicier fruits/veggies. Yes, it will turn hard items like carrots into juice, but there's a lot wasted - the pulp that comes out is very wet, whereas in a higher-end juicer with more power, the pulp is much drier. Wetter pulp means less juice in the cup and more waste.
I ran apples, carrots, and pineapple through it. The capacity is small, and the feeder tube is sized so that you have to do a lot of cutting to get the items to fit through. Again, fine for the occasional smoothie, but if you want to juice something every day, then the capacity constraints will be a burden.
Unlike other juicers, however, it comes with a blender attachment. That works pretty well - crushed through ice with no problem, and turned out a very nice strawberry daiquiri. A blender-plus-juicer is a natural combo, since some items (such as strawberries and bananas) are best liquified in a blender, while others (apples, pears, etc.) need a juicer.
Simple controls - just two speeds plus a pulse feature. However, the knob is hard to use when pulsing - not comfortable to grip.
The base has suction cups so it stays pretty well put, which is a nice feature. What is not well-designed is the latching system. It uses two plastic (and cheap plastic at that) latches that hold the juicer or blender attachment to the power base. Given the importance of these latches in how the machine functions, I was disappointed to see how light-weight they were. Also, when unlatched, they splay out at a 90 degree angle. I can easily see them getting damaged when the are unlatched. A better design would be sturdier plastic (or better yet, metal) where the latch has a spring so that it remains out of the way when unlatched to prevent damage.
Clean-up was not nearly as easy as it should be. Hard to get into all the nooks and crannies. The plastic stained easily from just a single run of carrots. Worst was the fact that the blender base does not detach, making it a real pain to clean out near the cutting blades.
I'll give it 2.5 stars (rounded down to 2). While it offers dual functionality at a low price, you can get a better blender for less, and the juicer is too lightweight for any significant use. Clean-up is not as easy as it should be, and the build quality is suspect. Perhaps worth a look if you mainly need to blend but want to try out juicing before spending the cash on a better model.
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Nesco American Harvest JB-50 2-in-1 Juicer/Blender, White with Green Trim
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