Nutribullet Flip review: a powerful personal blender for smoothies on the move

Nutribullet Flip: two-minute review

The Nutribullet Flip is designed to make the process of blitzing smoothies and shakes as mess-free as possible – and it works. Simply add all your ingredients to the cup, put on the blending lid, before flipping the cup upside down and pressing the power button; then simply flip it back the right way and drink straight from the cup. There's no need to pour out the drink into another vessel, nor remove the cap – and during several weeks of testing, the blender didn't leak at all, even when inverted.

The Flip's blades are positioned at the widest point, which means ingredients don’t become stuck, and the motor is more powerful than that of most personal blenders, which means it tackles ice with ease. During tests, we found that large pieces of fruit (such as frozen strawberries) sometimes required a second 30-second cycle to be completely blended; but the results were usually impressive.

The insulated cup keeps your finished creations cold for hours and you can swap to a lid without the integrated blender if you want to travel light. The Flip comes with a cover to protect the blades, if you decide to switch the cap, which is a nice touch.

Cleanup is extremely straightforward – just add a drop of dish soap and some water, run it for 30 seconds, and then rinse. There's no scrubbing necessary, and food doesn't accumulate around the seal or blades.

During tests, I was able to run it for 13 30-second cycles on a full charge (blending a banana milkshake) before it ran out of juice, so you should be able to use it for several days before having to reach for the USB-C charging cable. Note that thirty seconds after a blending cycle has finished, the Flip will go into sleep mode to conserve power.

The Nutribullet Flip isn't made for solids, and it isn't the cheapest portable blender around. However, if you’re looking for something that will fit in your cup holder in the car and is powerful enough to make an iced coffee in 30 seconds, this is the one for you.

Nutribullet Flip: price and availability

• List price: $99.99 (about £80 / AU$150)

The Nutribullet Flip launched in July 2024, with a list price of $99.99 (about £80 / AU$150). That puts it in between the Ninja Blast at $59.99 / £49.99 / AU$79.99 and the Smeg Personal Blender at $169.95 / £109.95/ AU$199. It's worth bearing in mind that Ninja's blender is considerably less powerful and struggles to blend frozen ingredients, so if you want a portable blender for icy drinks then the Nutribullet Flip may be worth the extra expense.

At the time of writing, the Nutribullet Flip is only available in the US, but you can find it for import via Amazon UK (built to US and Canadian electrical standards).

• Value score: 5/5

Nutribullet Flip: specs

Nutribullet Flip: design

The Flip is a new type of personal blender that aims to make the whole experience of making smoothies, shakes and the like as mess-free as possible by positioning the blades and motor in the top of the cup. Once your beverage is blended, you just turn the whole blender upside down, open the sip cap, and start drinking. There’s no need to remove the lid (unless you want to) and no risk of spillage. It’s a similar concept to the Ninja Blast, but while the Blast’s blades are in the bottom, the Flip has them in the lid.

Drinking through the part of the blender that contains the blade might seem strange, but the moving parts are well away from your mouth, so you won't come into contact with them. The blender won’t run with the sip lid open either, so there’s no chance it will activate while you’re enjoying your smoothie.

The box contains the main cup, the blending lid (with the blades and motor), a to-go lid that you can use to minimize weight if you don’t need to blend on the move, a stainless steel drinking straw with a cleaning brush (the lid has a hole to insert the straw), and an instruction booklet. The blender itself is available in black, stainless steel, or white (shown here).

To make your drink, load your ingredients into the cup (making sure that the liquid sits between the "minimum" and "maximum" markings inside), screw the lid into place, flip it upside down, and press the single button to start a 30-second cycle. Unlike some personal blenders, the Flip isn’t made for hot ingredients. It also requires a minimum amount of liquid, so you won’t be using it to make dukkah or crush nuts.

• Design score: 5/5

Nutribullet Flip: performance

The Nutribullet Flip isn’t intended for solid food, so I couldn’t run TechRadar's usual full battery of tests; for example, mayonnaise was out of the question, because you can’t pour in oil mid-blend. However, I did whip up several batches of our control smoothie recipe, which consists of almond milk, kale, blueberries and banana.

There were no leaks whatsoever during testing and after one 30-second cycle the smoothie was mostly blended. However, as you can see in the photo below, a chunk of unblended banana remained. Running a second cycle resulted in much better, smoother results.

It was a similar story when making a shake using milk, protein powder, and frozen berries. Nutribullet’s documentation says that the Flip can handle “most frozen fruit”, but the largest strawberries required two cycles to blend completely. Running the blender twice isn’t a big deal, but it might have been nice if there were two settings, one for 30 seconds and one for a minute for tackling tougher tasks; or, the blender defaulted to 45 seconds as a compromise.

The Flip performed best when making iced coffee, delivering perfect results. Considering my experience of making a smoothie with frozen berries, I had expected the Flip to require two attempts to crush ice cubes with milk and a shot of espresso; but it took only a single cycle to produce a perfect cold beverage. It proved much more effective than the Ninja Blast, partly thanks to the Flip’s more powerful motor (11.4V compared to 7.4V) and partly due to the design of the blender iteself.

Having the blades at the widest part of the cup means it didn’t suffer the Blast’s issue of ice cubes becoming stuck in the middle. As such, there was no need to shake the Flip mid-blend to loosen things up; it would make a mean espresso martini. Do ensure you heed Nutribullet's warning that never fill more than 25% of the cup's total volume with ice.

Although the Flip is decidedly top-heavy when used with the blending lid attached, it didn't at all feel awkward when being used as a drinking vessel. There’s no risk of any accidents with the mechanics when you're drinking from the blending lid; in fact, you’re so far away from the blade in the lid that you’ll have to hold the Flip at an angle for a few seconds before the liquid runs out if you’ve made a particularly thick drink.

One of the biggest advantages of the Nutribullet Flip is just how easy it is to clean. Simply squirt in a little dish soap, add some water, and run the blender for a 30-second cycle. Once complete, rinse out the suds and it’s ready to use again - no scrubbing required, with even bits of fruit skin and kale fully removed. The cup and to-go lid are dishwasher-safe, but both proved so quick and easy to clean by hand, I didn't find it necessary to add them to the appliance. Nutribullet warns that you should never try to clean the motor base, blade, and lid unit by immersing it in water or detergent, or putting it in the dishwasher.

I actually found myself using the Flip far more often than I might if it required more intense cleaning. Sure, I could use my usual shaker to prepare my post-run protein drink, but the flip did a better job of mixing the ingredients, and I could even throw in some fruit for good measure.

The Flip is charges using the USB-C cable supplied in the packaging. The color of the light around the button once you’ve screwed on the lid indicates the current charge level: green is high, orange is medium, and red is low; the color changes during charging, with solid green (not blinking) indicating a full charge. Before using it for the first time, you should charge the Flip for at least two hours.

During blending with ice, the Nutribullet Flip's noise levels reached a maximum of 79dB, which is similar to the Smeg Personal Blender (80dB) and around 10dB quieter than most countertop blenders we’ve tested. 

According to Nutribullet, the Flip can run up to 15 cycles on a single charge. After fully charging the blender, I added a banana, oat milk and cocoa to the cup, and was able to run 13 complete cycles before it ran out of power. That's pretty close, and means you'll be able to go several days between charges in regular use.

• Performance score: 4/5

Nutribullet Flip: should I buy it?

Nutribullet Flip: also consider

Ninja Blast

The Ninja Blast it just as portable as the Nutribullet Flip, but its less powerful motor and cup shape mean it's less capable of blending ice and frozen fruit. It's considerably cheaper, though, so a good budget option, particularly if you'll mostly be blending protein shakes.

For more information, check out our full Ninja Blast review

Smeg Personal Blender

Unlike the other two, this blender isn't intended to be carried around; instead, you blend your drink at home inside the bottle, then screw on a lid to take it with you. It's pricier than the other options here, with similar blending performance, but will look more stylish in your kitchen if you keep it there.

For more information, check our our full Smeg Personal Blender review

Nutribullet Flip: how I tested

I spent two weeks testing the Nutribullet Flip using a variety of different ingredients, both fresh and frozen, and different liquids including water, plant and dairy milks, and juice. For easy comparison with other devices, I used Nutribullet's own Banana Kale Blueberry Freeze recipe, which we use to test all blenders.

I weighed the blender with both of its lids to be certain of its weight, and measured the noise produced by the blender using a decibel meter.

I fully charged the Nutribullet Flip using the supplied USB-C charging cable, then added a banana, cocoa powder, and oat milk, and counted how many full cycles it was able to complete before the battery ran down.

Read more about how we test.

First reviewed August 2024