I bought this item for the purpose of making fruit smoothies.  It does a great job, but attaching the base to the jar is very painful to your fingers.  I had it for about a month, enduring the pain because it worked very well.  One day the blade was not secure, because it was so hard to attach.  I turned it own and the blade started to chop off the bottom of the plastic jar.  So I took it back to the store in search for a better quality blender and checking every blender in the store to see what other blenders were easier to attach together.