My mom got a Vitamix 5200 from Costco about a month ago. I used it almost non-stop. Used it to make rice milk, strawberry-banana smoothies, butter, and peanut butter. I used it so much I started to consider getting a high performance blender of my own. About a week later, I ended up getting the Blendtec Designer Series just to see which blender I liked better.Let me just say this review comes down to personal preferences and what you are willing to compromise on as both blenders are very good. You cannot go wrong with either blender. Both do the job just as well as the other.Pro's vs the Vitamix:- Design. I have always put a high value on form. Depending on the gap, I will sacrifice some functionality just to get the better looking product in my opinion. The Blendtec Designer Series is certainly a good looker. The design of it is also part of the reason why I went with the Designer Series instead of the Total Blender Classic. I got the black model so when everything is off and unplugged, the Blendtec just blends in. The motor base is rounder giving it a smooth look. Where the Vitamix 5200 motor base has sharp edges and is squarer looking. It stands out on the counter. So a win for the Blendtec.- Controls. I just love the touchscreen controls. Another reason I went with the Designer over the Total Blender Classic. The touch controls enhance the design of the motor base as referenced above when everything is turned off. When the controls are on, they are bright and sharp looking. The touch controls are responsive with no lag. As soon as you press the mode, the motor turns on and does its job. I love it over physical buttons. How a person uses a Blendtec differs from the Vitamix. It's hotly debated and up to personal preferences. The Blendtec relies mostly on its automated modes for blending your food. The benefit of that is you can simply hit the smoothie button and walk away. It will go through the smoothie mode starting out slow to draw the ingredients into the blade and slowly progress to a higher speed to turn rice milk, an orange, a banana, and frozen strawberries into a smoothie and stop when done. The Vitamix is all manual control where you start on Variable 1 and work yourself all the way to high depending on the recipe you're using. While this gives a person more control over the blending process, it does require the user to be more watchful when blending. For my uses, I prefer the Blendtec's automated modes. It does provide a slider for manual control and a pulse button.- Jar. The Blendtec's Wildside jar has a fifth side that is stated to help prevent cavitation. While I don't have the Fourside jar to compare it to, I haven't needed to stop the blender and mess with the ingredients in order to get them to blend. The Wildside jar is a square in shape leaving a nice wide bottom near the two blades. This combined with the two dull blades makes things a lot easier. I have made pretzel/pizza dough (same recipe) with the Blendtec. After allowing the dough to rise, the dull blades and the wide bottom made it easy to get all the dough out of the jar without worrying about cutting myself on the blades and trying to get everything out of the jar and not wasting anything. Where the Vitamix jar is a more traditional round design that narrows, as you get closer to the sharp 4 blades. When making peanut butter, it is a pain in the neck to get everything that is below the blades out of the jar. Have to take a spoon and take it out constantly moving the blades to get as much peanut butter out of the jar.- Cleaning. It's not a big win for the Blendtec as both machines are easy to clean. Just put about 2-3 cups of warm water and a dash of dish soap in the jars and let the machine do the cleaning. But, it goes back to the jars design. When making thicker things like peanut butter and dough that tend to stick to the jar, the wider bottom and dull blades make it easier to rinse out the Wildside jar. Where you have to again work around the sharp blades at the narrow bottom of the Vitamix jar.- Size. The Blendtec is able to be stored under the cabinets with the jar still on the motor base. The Vitamix can't store with the jar on the motor base.Cons vs. Vitamix- Consistency. Like cleaning, for me it's not a huge win for the Vitamix. But, the sharp blades do have a benefit over the dull blades. The frozen strawberries from Costco can be huge. And sometimes just running the smoothie cycle on the Blendtec leaves 1-2 small pieces of strawberry in the smoothie (nothing a few more seconds wouldn't solve). A lot of the times it will be completely smooth. But, I guess it depends on how many of the huge frozen strawberries find their way into the smoothie I make for the day. So a small win for the Vitamix there.- Lid design. Not a huge negative for me, but I do like the Vitamix lid design a bit better. It doesn't get as much splatter on it than the Blendtec's. Making it easier to remove without worrying about getting the contents of the jar over the counter, etc.The washes between the two blenders.- Noise. Both of these machines are loud, but they are very tolerable. In my opinion the Vitamix is a bit louder, but there is so little difference between the two. It shouldn't be a deciding point between them.- Out of the box readiness. This all comes down to what you plan to do with the blenders. If you plan to do nut butters more, the Vitamix is ready to do it out of the box with the tamper. The Blendtec either requires you to stop the machine to push the nuts into the middle of the jar so it can be blended or have to spend the money on the Twister Jar. From videos I have seen it does a good job making nut butters. On the other hand, if you want to do grains, the Blendtec is better suited for them out of the box (just as long as you don't mind cosmetic damage from the grains marking up the jar). The Vitamix requires the dry grains container, which has a different blade design better suited for grains. Where the standard jars blade will be damaged over time grinding them up.ConclusionI prefer the Blendtec Designer Series to the Vitamix 5200. But, it doesn't mean the Blendtec is the better blender. As stated above, it all comes down to personal preferences and where you are willing to compromise on. For me, the Blendtec came out to be the winner. But, you can't go wrong with either blender.Update 10/13: I'm still loving the blender. Been making smoothies almost every day for breakfast. Also used it to make baked potato soup( blendtec recipe and delicious) and other meal ideas. I did get the Twister jar to make peanut butter. Twisting the top in my opinion is easier than using the tamper with the Vitamix. Also, I like the texture/consistency of the peanut butter using the blendtec and twister jar over the Vitamix.I sat here for a while and debated on whether I should give this blender 4 or 5 stars. So far I have had this blender for 4 days and I have used it 10 times already because this thing has made me addicted to smoothies it is so amazing. But, I will start by saying what it is that made me decide to deduct a star and honestly I don't feel like this is a reason to not buy this blender which is why I debated over it for a while.It is LOUD when it goes up to the higher settings. My old blender never got so loud so I was extremely surprised when I felt the need to run into another room in order to preserve my hearing. I only endured this once however because I live in an apartment so I absolutely cannot have something this loud going off every day. When I first set it up I wanted to make a smoothie so I hit the smoothie button after I put everything in. The smoothie button is what made it go up to such a high speed in the first place. I still make smoothies but I use the manual controls now and never go above 4 because I don't want to disturb the neighbors more than necessary. When I get a house I will be using the smoothie button again.My second negative point is that when it did get to go on the higher settings that one time I hit the smoothie button it ended up walking across my counter. This is very understandable since it was spinning at such high speeds but definitely defeats the idea of being able to set it and walk away due to it's auto settings that will shut it off on its own. I feel like because of this I will still need to watch it, which doesn't really bother me since I had to watch my old blender it's just the fact that this blender is advertised as being able to set and forget in a lot of places.Now onto the good! This thing is a power house! With my old blender I ended up having to chew half the smoothies I made which made them very unappealing to me and I never got the smoothie hype. Well when I had my first smoothie in this thing I was sold, it was so creamy and well blended it was amazing. I also add chia seeds to my smoothies and that first time I made the smoothie using the actual smoothie setting even the seeds were ground up so much that they didn't even have a texture. Now that I can't go above 4 on the power setting due to noise the chia seeds still keep form unless I am patient enough to give it extra time. I love having whole chia seeds so it doesn't bother me because everything else is always that creamy texture still. And the machine is meant to go higher than 4 In order to make the perfect smoothie so I am extremely impressed with what I am still able to get.I love that the base is also easy to clean. It is a touch screen surface so it is completely flat and can be wiped clean with a simple damp cloth without having to worry about cleaning around buttons. I am so happy I chose this blender, it is a huge step up from my last one.This blender is amazing and if you use a blender every day or even just once a week this thing is worth the investment. The price might look really high but it's actually pretty cheap considering the fact that it has a 7 year warranty so you know you will have this thing for more than 7 years and it pays for itself really. If you want quality blending, invest in a good blender.We were very disappointed to find out this blender was refurbished when we got it. NOWHERE in the amazon details did it include that information. It wasn't until we got it home and looked up the number on the bottom of the blender that we found this out. It may not have been terrible, but something was definitely wrong with the motor. Sometimes it works, sometimes it sounds like something is really off. I make smoothies daily and only got three uses out of this one before we decided to return it before it really stops working.This is not your average blender! Since splurging and purchasing this i have made green smoothies everyday. I have trouble eating fruits and vegetables because i have had extensive mouth surgery due to cancer. It is so easy to add whatever fruits and vegetables you want in this blender, and everything is blended with no pulp leftover! The design is such that there is minimal cleanup. A terrific product!Don’t waste your time with other blenders cause you don’t want to spend the money. It’s worth every penny. And the best is there’s no sharp blades every time you wash it. We have smoothies every morning with nuts, fruit and many other things that are blended to perfection.I bought this so I could mix up smoothies with kale and other greens. It does this and much more. I've only begun exploring all the things this blender can do.I bought this initially to make green smoothies. I am very pleased with its power and its pre -programmed settings. Makes blending so much easier! I use it at least twice a day. Very quick to clean.