Our old blender was on its last legs. We got this one as it is a pulverizing blender that has a very strong motor in it. This blender has not given us any issues when blending up our smoothies. 

The wife makes about 8 smoothies a week for herself and the kid, and I am usually doing 2 or 3 a week myself. Every time, the smoothie has come out with no lumps of ice (we use ice cubes as well as frozen fruit) or fruit which was the case with out old unit. 

We also like the range of speeds on this blender as our old one only had 3 speeds (low-medium-hi) and a pulse button that was just a momentary hi speed.