Hamilton Beach 4-in-1 Electric Immersion Hand Blender with Handheld Blending Stick, Whisk + 3-Cup Food & Vegetable Chopper Bowl, 2-Speeds, 225 Watts, Silver and Stainless Steel (59765)

Why it's worth it

The Hamilton Beach 59765 gives you a 225W motor, two speeds, a stainless wand, a whisk and a 3-cup chopper. It does the everyday soup-and-smoothie job well and costs a small fraction of the premium picks.

For soup, the gap is much smaller than the price gap suggests. In Wirecutter's budget testing round this model scored within 12 percentage points of the Breville on basic soup pureeing while costing roughly 75% less. If you make squash soup a few times a winter and blend the occasional smoothie, that's most of the performance for a sliver of the money.

At 225 watts it clears the threshold that matters. Good Housekeeping found that blenders under 150W couldn't puree cooked carrots in a single pass and needed stopping and stirring, while every 200W-plus model finished uninterrupted. This one sits comfortably on the right side of that line.

From our review of 8 immersion blenders, by David Sinclair, Managing Editor

What we like

• +For soup, the gap is much smaller than the price gap suggests
• +At 225 watts it clears the threshold that matters
• +The attachments are the surprise
• +It's a good first immersion blender

What to know

• –The blades aren't as sharp as the premium models, and it shows
• –The build is plastic where the others are metal, and it's louder for it