Breville Juice Fountain Elite 800JEXL

The Breville Juice Fountain Elite 800JEXL has lots of good features, including a wide feeding-chute and a powerful, two-speed motor that extracts lots of juice from all fruits and vegetables. On the downside, it's very loud; a few owners also describe it as bulky and heavy.

The bottom line

The Breville Juice Fountain Elite 800JEXL isn't completely perfect, but it offers a hard-to-beat blend of reliability and convenience (due in large part to the 3-inch feeding chute). It's powerful enough to extract juice from even the hardest vegetables, and although it leaves leafy green pulp moist after the first pass, this is a common problem with many juicers; owners say re-processing the pulp a second time extracts the rest of the juice.

Many happy owners say that with the 800JEXL, you get what you pay for; however, the Breville Ikon Variable-Speed Juice Extractor BJE510XL (*Est. $200) is almost exactly the same juicer (with five speeds instead of two) and costs less. If you are on a tighter budget, another Breville juicer -- the Juice Fountain Compact BJE200XL (*Est. $100) -- also draws excellent reviews.

Performance

Strong, two-speed motor will juice anything -- if you can stand the noise. The Breville Juice Fountain Elite 800JEXL's two-speed motor allows for better torque when juicing hard foods such as beets and carrots. VitalityPlus.com, a retail site that tests the juicers it sells, says that the 800JEXL handled two pounds of carrots very well, producing lots of juice and dry pulp; however, juicing two pounds of spinach yielded less juice and wet pulp, a common complaint for most models the site tested. Several Amazon.com users agree, but they say that processing the wet pulp a second time at low speed is an easy, simple solution. Even those that haven't discovered this solution yet still love the 800JEXL for its otherwise excellent performance; as one ABT.com user writes, "In spite of the leafy greens issue I still totally enjoy using this juicer and would buy it again, only sooner."

The VitalityPlus.com crew also praises the 800JEXL for its speed, but they do point out that it's the noisiest of the juicers they reviewed. Testers with an independent consumer research group also find noise to be a downside. Most users seem happy to tolerate the 800JEXL's noisiness in exchange for its high performance: "While it can be loud when you juice, it is literally only seconds, and not worth the concern," says one Amazon.com reviewer.

The biggest negative is a series of owner complaints that the Breville Juice Fountain Elite 800JEXL leaks and splatters juice from where the pulp catcher meets the snap-on lid; several Amazon.com users say you can solve this problem by putting a plastic bag in the pulp container. This also makes cleaning the pulp container as easy as removing the bag.

Ease of use

Less chopping means efficient juicing. Reviewers universally love the Breville 800JEXL's 3-inch feeding chute as it saves time and effort; you don't have to chop smaller fruits at all before putting them down the chute (it's large enough to take whole apples). They also appreciate the juice pitcher's volume markers, so it's easy to see if adding more fruit or vegetables is necessary to extract the desired amount of liquid. Professional reviewers also give the juicer a general thumbs-up for convenience.

The 800JEXL's fast, mostly dishwasher-safe cleanup is also a hit; "The cleanup is way easier than in the old days," writes one happy Amazon.com user. A few were surprised that there are so many components to rinse (six), but they say if you rinse them right after use, cleanup is still fast and easy.

Less popular is the unit's size; it is too tall to fit under some kitchen cabinets. Although the weighted base does make the juicer stable, it leaves some owners complaining it's too heavy.

Durability

The Juice Fountain Elite should offer years of reliable juicing performance. The Breville Juice Fountain Elite 800JEXL carries a one-year limited warranty. "Excellently engineered and constructed," notes one reviewer on Williams-Sonoma.com, who also praises the model's stainless-steel construction because "acids in juice eat into plastic." Other owners on this and other sites chime in -- after using their juicer daily or weekly -- to say the 800JEXL is reliable and problem-free. "This unit is equal to commercial units that I have tried," writes one reviewer on Cooking.com. "You get what you pay for," says another.