For $400 you can get a blender that makes a smooth smoothie, crushes ice, and turns out a piña colada that would make a bartender pleased as punch. For $80 you can get a blender that makes a smooth smoothie, crushes ice, and turns out a piña colada that might make a bartender a tad embarrassed. Our suggestion: Live with a few chunks of ice in your icy drinks and save hundreds of dollars.

How we tested. We used 31 blenders to make rum-free piña coladas and strawberry smoothies, purée vegetables, crush ice plus water, and grate cheese. In a tough task, we repeatedly crushed ice cubes without water at each blender’s highest speed. Because two of the blenders claim to do additional jobs, we also used them and a lower-tech blender to make banana-bread dough, salsa, pancake batter, and ice cream.

Overall scores in the Ratings  might differ slightly from previous results in part because we now weight ability to make icy drinks more heavily.

What we found. Smoothies were easy for most in our chart; icy drinks were tough for many; puréeing and ice-crushing prowess varied slightly; and all grated well and passed our ice durability test.

One top-rated blender was excellent at all tasks and has a seven-year warranty (most are one year). But it lacks a pulse function, its parts aren’t dishwasher-safe, it has a plastic jar that could be scratched, it’s fairly noisy--and it costs $400.

Several very good choices cost hundreds of dollars less, though one scored slightly lower overall.

All four very good choices have at least five speeds; a pulse function; removable, dishwasher-safe parts; and a glass jar. Two of them have a filler hole big enough to let you feed food into the jar.

For food-processing jobs, the pricey blenders bested the lower-tech model we used for comparison, which often required stirring. But you could probably buy a good blender plus a processor for less than $400.