Oster Versa Pro Review

Performance Comparison

To find out which blender is truly a cut above the rest, we bought the best products available on the market today and pitted them against each other in a series of side-by-side tests to crown our winners. We judged the Oster Versa Pro in its performance in our five weighted rating metrics — Convenience, Smoothies, Ice, Grinding, and Pureeing — with the sections below elaborating on the Versa's results.

Smoothies

The Smoothie metric takes credit for 30% of each blender's final score. We used four sample beverages — fruit and oat smoothie, Oreo shake, berry smoothie, and green smoothie — to judge the performance of each blender, looking at both taste and texture. The Oster Versa delivered a subpar performance here. The green smoothie produced by this blender was quite mediocre, with an exceptionally chunky texture that wasn't very pleasant to drink.

We caught plenty of unblended greens in the sieve when we poured the smoothie — the main cause of the unsavory texture and inconsistent flavors throughout.

Performance did not improve when making a berry smoothie; the Versa left an entire strawberry unblended and the majority of the seeds intact.

The same thing happened with the fruit and oat smoothie. It took three full smoothie cycles to get the drink even remotely palatable. Even then, it still had a very grainy texture, full of unblended almonds and oats. However, the Versa produced a decent Oreo shake, with only a single chunk of ice cream that remained unblended. We had to stop and scrape down the sides of the pitcher to successfully blend the drink, though.

Ice

Taking credit for 20% of the total score, the Versa performed much better in the ice crushing test. It successfully crushed a pitcher full of ice, although it doesn't feed the ice very well, requiring us to pulse the power to the blender. It completely crushed the ice in about 15 seconds, even with the pulsing.

The margarita produced by the Versa was quite nice, though there were some irregularly large ice chunks dispersed throughout the drink. The rest of the drink had a very smooth texture and was close to an ideal margarita.

Convenience

Ranking on par with our Ice metric, Convenience also accounted for 20% of the overall score. To assess how convenient the Versa is to use, we looked at its ease of cleaning, the presence of preset functions and a digital timer, how easy the lid is to remove, and whether you could place the pitcher back on the base after washing to dry or if you needed to spread the components out on a dish rack. The Versa only scored average here.

This blender is not dishwasher safe, so manual washing is required. It's also not the easiest to clean by hand, as there are a few sharp edges and hard-to-reach places on the pitcher that can trap food. Similarly, the lid had some difficult-to-clean areas, requiring you to clean it with a toothbrush-style brush. However, there is plenty of ventilation if you place the pitcher back on the base for it to dry, provided you put it slightly offset to allow air to reach underneath. It still will dry much faster when spread out on a dish rack or mat.

This model lacks a digital timer, but it features a few preset operations. These are clearly labeled on the blender itself and very easy to use.

The lid is also fairly easy to remove, though it can provide some difficulties at times. This blender is on the quieter side compared to the rest of the group, measuring 83.8 dBa in our test, compared to around 90 dBa for the loudest models.

Pureeing

Accounting for 15% of the Versa's total score, our Pureeing metric consists of a trifecta of tests: mixing and heating soup, as well as pureeing nut butter. The Versa did reasonably well here.

It struggled somewhat in our nut butter test, getting exceedingly hot and forcing us to stop the test partway through. However, after we gave it a little break and added a touch of extra oil, the Versa eventually made a high-quality nut butter that was on par with the Vitamix A2500.

The Versa did a mediocre job making tomato soup, creating a thicker mixture that required us to force it through the sieve. There was also plenty of leftover unblended food in the sieve.

The Versa heated up the soup, though not as much as we would have liked, only hitting about 138°F.

Grinding

For the final 15% of the score, we assessed how well each appliance did when tasked with grinding up hard food. We again used a trio of tests, rating the Versa's performance with grating parmesan cheese, powdered sugar, and milled cornmeal. The blender scored reasonably well here.

95% of the cornmeal produced by the blender from milling popcorn passed right through the sieve without any difficulties.

The Versa did very well at making powdered sugar. It also had a solid performance at grating parmesan cheese, though the final blend was slightly coarser than some of the premium blenders' grated cheeses.

Should You Buy the Oster Versa Pro?

All in all, we were not impressed with the Versa Pro. It scored towards the bottom of the pack in our blender test fleet, and we definitely would not recommend this model if you're a smoothie fanatic. This blender will do the job if you're using it primarily for crushing ice or making blended cocktails like margaritas, but we think you can get more for your money elsewhere.

What Other Blenders Should You Consider?

For a lower price, you can pick up the NutriBullet Blender, which scored on par with or just slightly below the premium models in many of our test metrics. If your budget allows, we suggest either the Cuisinart Hurricane Pro or the Vitamix A2500 Ascent Series, which topped the charts in our review and should not disappoint regardless of your blending tasks.