I purchased this item a few months ago, and it's worked great! It's powerful and cleans up in a flash.

The brushed chrome is a chrome-colored plastic, so don't be expecting the handle portion to be metal. It's attractive, though, and feels sturdy. I haven't had a lot of experience with these, but so far I love this one. I'd get another in a flash if I needed a good kitchen gift for someone.

As a warning if ordering this: I ordered it from CHEFS Catalog through Amazon and found they were sending the WRONG COLOR, so as a warning, make sure the Amazon email confirmation you get from Amazon has the correct color listed. I ordered the brushed chrome and they were sending white. It seemed to be what Amazon had told CHEFS to send me white, because the CHEFS customer service also had white as the color, when my account's order history clearly said chrome. I had to cancel my Amazon order and re-order it through the CHEFS customer service rep, since it seemed I didn't have the ability to cancel it myself on Amazon. Know this if you have to go through the same thing. It was an effort to get the CHEFS rep to understand what I was trying to do. :-\ Overall, CHEFS sent it quickly and it ended up all right.

DIDN'T EVEN LAST 6 MONTHS:

I bought this blender about 4 months ago and now its completely broken. It never worked well, as the blade would frequently detach from the motor. I was making a smoothie for breakfast yesterday and the thing stopped working altogher.

Don't waste your time or money.

I love my Cruisant CSB-76BC SmartStick 200-Watt Immersion Hand Blender. I use it to finish my soap. It takes my homemade soap to trace in a matter of minutes versus stirring it by hand which can take up to 90 minutes. One of the best products for the job. Makes my soap look very smooth and I am able to pour into molds within a matter of minutes before it starts setting up.

Love this product! Used it once so far and it was fantastic on brocolli cheese soup! Can't wait to make a tomato soup!

This is my third or fourth hand blender, my second Cuisinart immersion blender. There is one big plus over my last Cuisinart, and there's a minus to it as well.

The big plus is that it is really powerful. What a whizzer! I make smoothies in the morning, using both Metamucil and protein powders with yogurt or kefir, soy milk and/or orange juice. Sometimes I throw in a few pieces of frozen fruit like raspberries or strawberries (sliced or pieces) or blueberries. The power of this SmartStick makes the grainy-ness of the Metamucil disappear (a great thing, in my book!), and the stick doesn't blink when it tackles the frozen fruit.

The minus is that there is only one speed to this SmartStick. My last Cuisinart had two speeds, fast and slow. The slow speed was good with pureeing really hot soups, so that you wouldn't risk blowing boiling liquid all over yourself and the kitchen. It was great when you didn't want to "froth" a liquid, when you just wanted to "stir." This SmartStick gives you froth and high speed all the time. I wish that another, slower speed would have come on the blender.