I challenge you not to be wowed by the power of the Ninja BlendBoss – it has the strength of a Vitamix packed into a compact Stanley Cup-esque design

Ninja's bestsellers may often be imitated, but that never stops the brand from bringing out new innovations with even better designs. The newest addition is the BlendBoss (which on first look I thought looked just like a Stanley Cup and a NutriBullet had a baby), a compact blender available in an array of pastel colours.

I got my hands on it to give it a try before its official release via the Ninja website in order to test claims that it has 'total crushing power' to rival even the best blenders from the likes of Vitamix, despite its cute, compact looking base.

If you're always taking drinks on the go, the tumbler cup with a leakproof pop-up cap is designed to be just the thing to sit into your car's cupholder or to pop into your day bag. Here's what I thought of the hottest new Ninja appliance, which is bound to become its next viral hit – especially when you learn it has as much power as the top-rated blender we've ever tried, the Vitamix A2500i, which retails for around £400 more.

Out of the box, the first thing I noticed about the BlendBoss is that the squat little base is heavy. That's not all that surprising when you learn that there's a seriously powerful motor hidden in there, but it does give you the first inkling that this isn't a looks over substance blender.

The base and the tumbler look even better in person – I especially love the Lavender shade that I tried it in – with the matching butter yellow accents adding so much against the two-tone lilac.

This blender is smart too. Along the base, there are four buttons – three of these are 'IQ' programs, along with a standard pulse setting, including blendIQ, smoothieIQ and icecrushIQ.

In my first try of this blender, I tried each one to test out whether these 'intelligent programs' could actually sense a difference in the consistency of what I was trying to blitz up. First up was a simple smoothie with frozen fruit and milk.

Auto programs on blenders can be hit or miss, but the results of the smoothie setting here were very impressive. Just when I thought the program had stopped, the blender would whirr back to life and finish the process and the resulting smoothie has a great texture to it.

The suction feet on the base of the blender meant that there was no shakiness to the unit, though the sound levels were what you would expect with any standard appliance like this (rather loud).

I found the hands-free nature of the 'IQ' settings to be a real bonus. In an everyday setting, it means you can prepare other things without having to oversee the blender –a winner for busy weekday mornings.

Another test I ran was making houmous. Not everyone is interested in owning one of the best food processors, either due to budget or space, so it's always useful if you can find some of the some functionality in a blender unit. I used 'blendIQ' for this one and the results were very good considering the capability of the blade. I'd be happy to have served this houmous at a dinner party for sure.

The ability to make crushed ice is another selling point of the BlendBoss – perfect for cocktail evenings or desserts. It won't shock you that the extremely powerful base makes easy work of ice, though, of course, the smaller cup size is a bit limiting if you're crushing for a crowd.

In person, the other thing that really impressed me about this blender was the finish of the flip cap lid. These tend to be a bit flimsy or temperamental (and prone to come mysteriously undone in your bag), but after a good shake and attempts to thwart the system 'accidentally', it didn't budge. So far, so leakproof.

All in all, it was very hard not to be impressed by this small but mighty blender on my first spin with it. Could you see the BlendBoss earning a space on your worktop? It won't need much room, that's for sure!