Smoovii review: probably the best portable blender you can buy

The Smoovii review in short: a well made and rather powerful little thing, able to blitz most fruits easily.

People are so busy these days. So much so that there seems to be a demand for portable smoothie makers. That’s right, whizzing up your fruit in a corded device in your kitchen to decanter into a water bottle is way too time consuming. Thanks to brands like Smoovii, you can save on these precious minutes by purchasing a portable blender. Just pop it in your bag and take it with you to blend on the go.

Sarcasm aside, the best portable blenders can actually come in quite useful. Say you wanted a freshly blended smoothie at lunchtime but you plan on being out all day. With the Smoovii, you don’t need to worry about having to whizz up a concoction before leaving the house and sitting in your bag, fermenting away all morning. 

But does the Smoovii really get your fruit in enough of a spin to create that authentic smoothie consistency and warrant a purchase? We’ve tested it with some real life fruit to find out. Realistically, you are not going to be able to smoosh seeds, grasses or most veg with a Smoovii, so don't even bother – check out our guides to the best blender and best protein shake blender for that sorta thing. 

Smoovii: price and availability

The Smoovii portable blender was launched in Autumn 2019 and is available to buy now from the brand’s official UK store for an RRP of £49.99. It comes with a plastic lid with strap that you can pop it right on top of the mixing goblet – yes, that is what it’s referred to – and take it with you on all your healthy jaunts. 

Smoovii does not appear to be available in the USA or Australia. 

Smoovii review: design and build quality

The first thing you need to know about the Smoovii blender is that it is only available in two rather garish colours. A marginally offensive green or a pound shop purple. Yum. Definitely not to my taste, nor something that will fit with the lifestyles of those who only like to use stylish, minimally-designed or subtle-looking things. The plastic material doesn’t help either, making it look a little cheap. Although Smoovii makes up for this to an extent with its glass goblet, which really feels of a decent quality.

If you can look past the colour options available, the Smoovie is actually put together pretty well. It’s light enough not to make a huge difference to the overall weight of your bag but is able to store 350ml of liquid, just over that of a coca cola can. Definitely enough for a dense smoothie, either as a snack or accompanying a meal.

The device is charged via a rather dated micro-USB connection. It would have been better to see some Type-C connectivity here, but it doesn’t bother us that much. And at least Smoovii has gone to the lengths to create a small rubber cover for the outlet to ensure no liquid gets inside. Not all portable blender makers have gone to this effort. Above this is a power switch, which you have to hold for three seconds for it to turn on and begin blitzing your fruit. This button is accompanied by a light, which tells you if the battery needs charging or not. 

It’s worth noting at this point that the Smoovii is not dishwasher safe. 

Smoovii review: performance

The Smoovii operates in the same way as a plug-in blender except because there’s no power cable, the smooshing power is somewhat lacking. Also, you can only get Smoovii to spin for 20 seconds at a time. Still, it is able to blend fruit and even soft veg – not the hard stuff, mind – with relative ease. More impressively, it can crush small amounts of ice into your smoothie too. It can also blend hot liquids up to 60C. It won’t heat them, obviously, but it can withstand the heat from hot liquids if , say, you want to whizz up a frothy hot chocolate. 

Check out our my where I’ve tested out how well the Smoovii can whip up a banana and some blueberries. It did a good enough job and while there was some skin left behind from the blueberries, I’ve found even powerful corded blenders do this, so that's allowable. 

You won’t find anything fancy here like a pulse option, and there’s only one power level. Nevertheless, what else were you expecting from a cordless £50 blender? As long as you're not expecting too much, it will definitely meet your expectations. 

Cleaning can be a bit of a nightmare, however, as the blades are tricky to get around. Ideally, you need to run it for a further 20 seconds, immediately after use, with some warm water and detergent inside. It's not dishwasher proof, and allowing crushed fruit, protein powder, milk etc to dry onto the blades will leave you with a potentially tricky cleaning assignment later.

In terms of battery life, you’ll get about 20 smoothies out of a full charge. More than a week’s worth of smoothies, I’d say.

Smoovii review: verdict

The Smoovii is about as good as portable blenders get although that is frankly not saying much. If I was reviewing this just as 'a blender', it would get 3 stars at most. However, if you accept that it only really does one thing – making fruit smoothies when you are not at home – it outperforms rivals and is worth 4 stars on that basis alone. 

Smoovii will blend most fruit mixes thoroughly offering a pretty smooth texture; more so than I was expecting. It's also reasonably priced, and lots of people on Instagram evidently like it a lot.