Are Cheap Juicers Worth It?
Hey it’s Dan from eujuicers.com.
In this video, I’m going to do an interesting
comparison, something that I’ve been interested
in for a while.
And that’s taking a look at a cheap copycat
juicer.
A few years ago, there were just a few models
of vertical juicers on the market.
The quality brands like Omega, Sana, Hurom,
Kuvings came a little later, all of these
models coming out of South Korea.
We’ve noticed here just in the past couple
of years a lot of what I call copycat juicers
coming out.
They are all coming from China, where they
can be assembled really cheaply.
The cost of labor is low, and the cost of
materials is low because maybe they are using
less quality materials.
I’m not sure.
But, it’s something I’ve wondered – how can
you copy something like this for such a low
price and how is it going to perform?
So what I want to do is take a look at this
guy here and I’m going to compare it with
a Sana 808.
In the US this is the Omega VSJ843, the Q
model, that’s this square kind of coffee maker
look.
In my opinion, it’s the best vertical out
there.
Maybe even more than the wide mouths like
the big Kuvings guys.
Just because with the wide mouths, you’re
forcing so much produce in, you’ve gotta make
sure the motor can handle it all at once.
With verticals, it’s always a good idea to
feed things slowly to give you the best yield.
It will reduce the chance of jams, treat the
motor better.
So first of all let’s see, is this guy made
in China?
I can tell you this one’s made in Korea.
You can always look at the bottom and, yep,
made in PRC – People’s Republic of China.
And first impressions.
Well, no.
First impressions are the box.
And I’d show you the box, but I don’t want
to get in trouble with any lawyers about brands
so I’m going to kind of hide that.
But I can tell you, on the box, I’m looking
at it right now.
It lists a couple of the big selling features.
Like, maybe on something like this or a new
vertical you might see “big mouth” or “43
rpm”, “new system – twin-bladed auger”, “high-quality
induction motor”, “direct drive”, things like
that.
This one says “Auger!”, OK it’s got an auger,
that’s good.
“Vertical system!”.
OK.
Great, that’s an innovation I guess.
“Easy!”
OK, and “Healthy!”
And I also see “Vitamin” spelled with an E
at the end so I can tell you just by looking
at the manual there’s some challenging English.
As a former English teacher for 10 years that
always gets to me.
But before I disassemble, I want to say “How
do you know the difference in quality?”
What are some things to look at.
The first one would be warranty.
What’s the warranty on these guys?
This guys two years, that’s by law here where
we are, every product has to have a two-year
warranty.
The one here is going to be 10 years motor,
five years parts on this 808 from Sana and
another important thing, “How do you support
that warranty?”
Let’s say I’m using this guy and hey, it’s
juicing pretty well, and after a couple of
months the motor breaks, or one of these little
plastic pieces snaps.
With one of these guys, you’d order the spare
part.
You call us at EUjuicer, we keep the spare
parts in, or you ship it in.
It gets fixed.
It’s under warranty.
It’s taken care of.
A product like this, they mass-produce one
batch, ship them out, they don’t make spare
parts, it’s just a cash grab real fast.
So you’re not going to get spare parts.
maybe you’ll get a replacement, maybe you’ll
go through a lot of hoops or maybe you’ll
say “You know what?
It’s so cheap, it’s like a disposable model,
I’ll just buy a new one.”
Which brings up the whole question of the
environmental aspect.
If you’re going to be filling landfills with
these guys because they are breaking every
6 months.
What impact is that going to have on the environment,
filling it up with these plastics.
Which, I can tell you just by looking at it,
it’s clear it’s not going to be BPA-free.
The plastics here are definitely BPA-free,
this clearly is not.
Let me take a look at these.
Let’s start comparing these.
First thing I want to do, any difference here?
Not really.
Like I sad, what they do in these Chinese
factories…
And don’t think I’m just ripping on China.
iPhones come from China.
They are assembled in Foxconn, one of the
most high-tech assembly plants there is.
Although consider what parts are going in.
You’ve got Samsung processors actually going
into iPhones coming from Korea, you’ve got
parts sourced from around the world.
These guys, all the parts, everything is coming
the cheapest way possible so they can hit
that price point.
There’s no marketing involved.
They are piggybacking on other company’s
research and development.
They are copying things, you can see.
Just looking at the design, you can see right
off hand, some of these things that are the
same.
These juice flaps, the overall design.
They tried to pretty this guy up with a little
piece of pressed aluminum, but it’s hollow
under there.
It’s clearly decorative.
And I can tell you, overall, before I look
at these guys up close, the Sana here is super
solid.
And you can just tell.
The way it’s constructed.
There’s no gaps in the molds, there’s these
fine little vents.
This has in the back some big cheap looking
hole for a vent that things could get in.
Smooth corners, quality construction.
It weighs oh yeah, twice as much.
Something you can’t see would be the motor.
This thing’s got a super high-quality, high
torque motor which is what you need.
You don’t need horsepower, you need torque.
That twisting power, because you are twisting,
you’re cutting, you’re chewing things.
We’ll see when we do the carrots.
Let’s take a look – yeah, these guys look
the same.
Feeding tube is about the same.
One thing’s kind of funny, they copied the
label on the back.
They’ve got three or four safety points on
a silver with some red highlights.
They both come with pushers.
Pushers look about the same.
Take off these juicing assemblies.
Let’s take a look at the juicing bowl.
Again, yeah, really thin.
Check out this gasket here.
Notice, they copied.
Amazing how much of a copy it is, even down
to the gasket, but this one you can see here.
It’s not a perfect circle.
It’s all over the place.
It’s like it’s been cut by my nephew or something.
And getting this piece back in is a pain.
In fact, it’s such a pain I’ll do it later.
They both have juice flaps.
Take a look at the difference in size on these
pulp outlets.
The Sana is a lot bigger, I’d say probably
twice as much in terms of volume can go through
there.
It might cause a problem with jamming later,
we’ll see.
But again, just the construction, it feels
flimsy.
It’s held on with tiny little screws.
It’s really light.
And like I said, remember, parts in here are
experiencing a lot of pressure.
They’ve got to be strong.
Take a look at the augers.
Nice copy.
Omega and Sana, they revolutionized vertical
juicing a couple of years back with these
twin-bladed augers.
They go at half the speed.
They run at 43 rpm.
Notice here, it’s a little smaller but it’s
twin-bladed.
I notice a lot of flash lines too.
That means this was two pieces just molded
together.
The manual doesn’t say what it’s made of.
These guys are super strong, GE Ultem, really
solid material.
Notice these little teeth here that this doesn’t
have.
What that’s going to do is turn this cleaning
blade assembly using a tiny gear, something
I didn’t mention to you before.
That’s an old, first generation feature.
It’s a little flimsy too.
We’ll see when I juice.
That’s a place where the pulp can sneak out
and get into your juice, so it’s quite possible
that this guy’s going to have pulpier juice.
We’ll see.
Besides that, let’s look at the juicing screens.
They both have cleaning blades.
Again, this was a revolutionary feature when
these guys came out, it’s been copied here.
Look how much thinner this is.
I can flex it.
I don’t want to bend it too much because I’m
afraid it’s going to snap.
This guy is much more solid.
Again, BPA free.
Take a look at that.
PC.
Polycarbonate, that’s our dead giveaway.
It’s not BPA free.
And just the construction.
Again, this is more solid.
There’s a little more surface area on this
juicing screen here, and also the way it’s
held together.
If you see inside, there’s just the clipping
system, and all these plastic pieces.
There’s so much plastic coming into contact
with the juice on this guy.
It’s kind of crazy.
A lot of flash lines on here.
Molding obviously molding joints.
It was definitely made fast, cheap, one run,
and that’s it So I’m going to assemble these
guys, and I’ve got a kilo of carrots and see
how it goes.
So I’m ready to start juicing.
I’ve got a kilo of carrots, actually I weighed
them out: 1.011 in both of these.
I had to shuffle some around.
So we’ll get an accurate look.
And I need to put these juice containers and
pulp containers.
This one’s kind of interesting.
It just sort of fits flush.
The Sana has much bigger pulp container and
again BPA-free and a juice container of, it
will hold just over a liter.
And it’s nice because it’s got a handle.
A little pitcher, it’s got gradations there.
One thing I want to bring up, I sound like
I’m really ragging on this guy, I’m really
insulting this juicer.
But if it’s the only way, if it gets you,
something like this, into slow juicing, if
you can’t afford a quality juicer and this
can get you by for a little while, maybe that’s
the way to go.
Definitely juicing is much better than drinking
soft drinks and even those store-bought juices
that have been [pasteurized and pretty much
reduced to water and sugar.
So, again any way that you can get in to juicing,
do it.
But let’s just see, see how they go.
Let me start with guy here.
And again, I do want to point out, verticals
– this is always the biggest challenge.
Carrots, beets, root vegetables.
At home, I use my horizontal.
It’s a much better design for that.
Verticals can do a lot, they are really flexible
and versatile, but this could prove to be
a challenge.
And one thing to remember is with carrots,
feed them slowly.
Don’t force them.
Don’t be pushing that pusher in because you
could cause a backup, you could cause a clog,
you could reduce your yield.
Maybe even just slowly feed it or just break
them into smaller pieces.
And what I’m looking for when I do this, let’s
see how the motors react.
The motor in the Sana here I know is designed,
if it gets stressed, if there’s too much,
it will stop and then you just reverse for
a second.
With this guy, I think it’s using a different
type of motor, it may just slow down.
It may jam, we’ll see.
Also let’s listen to motors real quick.
Here’s the Sana.
And then here’s this guy.
You can tell there’s a big difference in technology
there.
Alright, I’m going to start this guy.
Uh huh.
Notice already we know how this handles stress,
it slows down.
Notice I’m feeding these carrots one at a
time, that’s the way to go with a vertical.
Do you see that?
The blades stopped.
So that gear, something happened there.
The blades actually stopped rotating so something
jammed into that gear there which we may see
as pulp in the juice later.
Looks like the wiping blades have kind of
given up.
Oh, speak too soon.
So it seems the wiping is kind of an optional
feature when it wants to do it.
OK last carrot.
OK, so that’s this guy.
A couple of observations I can tell you.
First of all, this pulp container is a bit
small.
It’s just so narrow, it looks like it was
designed by a designer to look good with this
but maybe not be so functional.
Second, it never jammed but it slowed down
a lot and the wiping blades were only running
maybe half the time.
Again that gear in there.
And lastly one thing we can’t show you on
film is the distinct electrical smell I’m
getting.
There’s a little vent right here and it’s just
sort of shooting a yummy smell of burnt electrics.
Again, I don’t know if that bodes well for
the future of this, but again if it’s a disposable
juicer, why not I guess.
Alright, let’s do this Sana and see how this
guy goes.
I will say, looks like it got a good amount
of juice.
It made juice.
That’s what it’s supposed to do.
It separated the fiber from the juice, so
in that sens, good job.
Alright, they both took about the same amount
of time.
What I want to do is strain the juices, see
how much pulp is in there, and also want to
check.
Let me just compare.
Let me grab a handful of pulp from each.
See if I can just give it sort of a moisture
feel.
Kind of wet.
There’s a little juice dripping out still.
So I could still juice a bit more with my
hands.
How about this one?
These 808s, VSJ series are known for really
dry pulp.
I can still get a bit out of this guy too.
There’s definitely dryer, fluffier here.
Not a ton of difference.
See how much pulp there is here.
Kind of an odd thing to hold.
It’s a fairly wide mesh, so it won’t catch
all the pulp.
There’s quite a bit in there actually, and
some stuck in there.
That’s actually a whole lot.
Almost like a, it would be a smoothie if I
didn’t strain that.
Usually I don’t strain my carrot juice at
home.
Coming out of a horizontal.
I like a bit of pulp, but if I want a smoothie
I’ll use a blender.
And it looks like maybe 380 ml of juice after
the pulp is removed.
OK, wow, here’s some pulp at the end.
Take a look at the difference.
You can see there’s a lot of pulp there.
There’s a bit here.
And how about the yield.
Like I said, 380 over here, I’d say I got
about 500, a little bit more, let’s say 510,
520.
So definitely a higher yield for sure out
of the Sana.
Alright, so definitely a huge difference with
the pulp.
Let me see if I can pour them into these bottles
here without causing a mess.
I’m really good at missing bottles.
I want to taste it too.
Yeah, you can kind of see the difference.
You can see there’s a lot more left on the
Sana’s.
Kind of bitter, but that’s more likely due
to the carrots themselves, not the juicer.
And a bit pulpy still.
Just far smoother.
Again, these 808s, VSJs, they’re kind of
known in the industry for making the smoothest
juice, especially out of carrots.
Last thing I want to do is, let’s just kind
of take it apart real quick, see how these
things look.
I’m not going to clean it.
We’ve got videos if you want to see one
ofthese guys being cleaned.
They’re pretty easy to clean.
So, I just want to see how much pulp is left.
And there’s carrot juice all over the motor
base.
Again, it doesn’t bode well for the life
of the machine.
If it gets under that gasket, it’s going
to get into the motor and short it out.
Or if it gets under these hooks here.
So, again, some of the cost cutting.
Yeah, it’s dripping out right now.
There’s, I don’t know if you can see but
there is juice coming out of it right here.
Let’s just see how much pulp is still on
the auger.
A fair amount and still quite a bit in there.
How about under here?
There’s some packed in down there.
And here, yeah, it wouldn’t be too hard
to clean it.
You’d rinse this off, scrub it with a brush,
just set some of these aside.
Let’s take a look at the Sana.
Again, I love how these things pop on and
off.
There’s no hooks holding it on.
How does this guy look?
Let me grab the other one.
Similar.
Little less on this guy.
But check out these juicing bowls.
Definitely more there, and this guy is still;
dripping juice and this one isn’t.
And the screens, notice the inside of this
one is much cleaner.
This one has lots of carrots sort of impacted
or stuck in there.
So it’s going to be harder to clean, and
there’s just – it’s that gear system,
it’s pulling the pulp in with the juice.
It’s old technology.
And inhere, yeah, just like before, they both
have some carrots in there that will rinse
right away.
And that should do it.
So, I guess I satisfied my curiosity.
What does a cheap juicer get you?
It gets you juice.
You know, like I said, if that’s all you
can afford, it will hold you over for a while.
Save up for a quality machine.
It’s better to jump in and start juicing,
especially with a slow juicer versus a high-speed
like a centrifugal.
Otherwise what did we see?
Definitely cheaper quality materials.
You get what you pay for.
This is definitely solid.
Like I said it’s got a warranty.
It’s got 10 years and 5 years.
10 years motor 5 years parts.
10 and 5.
And the important thing with something like
this is, something goes wrong, you can call.
You can call us, or you can send it in to
us.
It will get fixed.
If it’s under warranty, it gets fixed for
free.
And there’s always parts being made.
We have a huge stockpile of parts for all
our juicers.
Something like this, there is no warehouse
with parts.
They were all assembled and shipped off and
done.
Alright, well I guess that’s it I’m going
to clean up and drink some juice.
Some pulpier juice and some super smooth juice.
Hope you enjoyed the video.
If you’d like more information, I actually
wrote an article that goes into more detail
on what to ook for in cheap juicers.
We’ll put the link down here above the comments
there.
Otherwise, check out our website.
That’s www.eujuicers.com.
I’m Dan and I’ll see you next time.
