Look at all the buttons!

I did not purchase this blender, and probably never would have. That being said it's the only blender I currently have access to so I do use it on a regular basis. It is a decent blender and well worth the rating of "average".

The components of the blender are no real surprise. There's the carafe (jar or whatever you want to call it), lid, base, blades, and gasket. The lid (triangular) goes on the carafe, which goes on the blades, which screws together with the gasket and all sits on the base. Note that I said "sits on the base", that will come up later, but I want to talk about this blender from top down.

LID
The triangular lid has a different option at each point that can be lined up with the pour spout on the jar. These options are closed (solid, nothing should come out), pour (open, everything should come out), and strain (little slats so the liquid should come out but the chunks should get caught). Use as you deem necessary. There is also a removable plug in the middle for throwing stuff into the blender while it's on. That's about where the documented features end. The undocumented features include the geyser effect. I love this feature. The lid has apparently been designed in such a way that it fits into the top but not all that well. Remember this is a plastic lid on a plastic carafe so there isn't much friction. If you are blending a bunch of liquid at a high rate (say, liquefy) and remove your hand from the lid you are liable to find the lid on the floor and your liquid on the ceiling. I think there is still some enchilada sauce up in the cracks.
My recommendation to blender buyers: Find a rubber lid. The added friction well help prevent the geyser effect.

CARAFE
This is probably the bulk of my complaint with the blender. The carafe is essential to a blender, and this one fails. It's first fault is that it's plastic. Please, don't pour hot liquid in this carafe. Just as it's not dishwasher safe it's not hot substance safe either. Hot liquids could melt the carafe. While it would have to be REALLY hot liquid to do that even mildly hot liquids make the carafe start to flex as it warms up. While this may seem like a minor inconvenience it does effect the movement of the substance in the carafe, and leeches some plastic into that substance.

Another bickering point is the odd shape of the carafe. It's rounded at the bottom and triangular at the top. Normally you'll find a carafe with shape to it, that helps make the substance being blended move, but it's normally one shape all the way up. With this blender the round bottom means that if you put in more than about 3 cups of substance in the 7 cup carafe the portion in the round bottom spins great, but the top portion (in the triangle) tends to just sit there floating along and moving very slowly (unless of course the liquid is extremely thin). This also tends to lead to less than perfectly blended concoctions. Because of this I either do small batches or make the liquid extremely thin.
My recommendation to blender buyers: Get a glass carafe. Don't be afraid of the glass. Most of these are quite thick (and as such heavier) so they are quite durable. These things can take heavy use and allow you to blend hot substances, as well as adding weight and stability to the blender.

BLADE ASSEMBLY
I'm going to put a bunch down here all pertaining to the blades, gasket, and base of the jar. First let me say that the gasket screws onto the base and holds the blades in place. Very simple, nothing fancy. This assembly does it's job, and does it well. I've never had a leak or any breakage.

The other thing that you'll find down here is a flaring base for the carafe. This base gives a nice skirt effect as the jar sits on the blender base, providing a smooth line from the base to the carafe. Very aesthetic. However this skirt also acts as a wide base when the carafe sits on the counter and helps prevent tipping. This is a good thing. However don't let this confuse you: the wide base prevents the carafe from tipping, but because it's all light plastic makes an excellent counter runner. Bump the carafe and it's liable to slide right off the counter.

BASE
The base of the blender has two real points of interest: the carafe connection and the buttons. Other than that it's really just a heavy metal motor with a plastic case and a cord. On this model the cord can be coiled into the base for storage, which is nice if you don't use it much. It's also got a decent weight. It's not super heavy but it's not the lightest I've encountered either. All in all I'd say it's a good weight for the size and carafe that it has.

As for the connection: I don't like it. This base and carafe don't lock together. Most blenders have some form of locking mechanism which is completely missing from this model. The carafe can fit to the base in two ways: it drops into a slot with the handle facing left or it drops into a slot with the handle facing right. Either way there is a guard on the left and right preventing the carafe from tipping that way, but it never locks into place. I've found the carafe actually sits pretty securely, but is a bit prone to tipping backwards if you bump the top while reaching to drop something in. The carafe is so light that I really don't feel comfortable with this, although I have never knocked the carafe clear off the base.

Now we are down to the buttons. Who the heck uses 10 different speeds? What is the actual difference? I can't tell. I generally use a low chop setting or liquefy, and nothing in between. Yes, I'm a flip switch blender enthusiast. Well, not true, I like two settings: high and low. If there's a pulse I'll use that as well. I see all other speeds/settings on a blender as marketing to be avoided. Using the high/low and my eyes I can blend to whatever I'm really looking for. Another thing about the buttons is that they are the push & pop type. They sit relatively close together and if you spill anything between them it's a pain in the neck to clean. The rest of the blender actually cleans very easily. Most of the time you can just pour some soap and water in the blender and throw it on a high speed: it's ready to be rinsed and dried in about a minute.
My recommendation to blender buyers: Get a blender with a nice heavy base. This prevents tipping. However I also recommend making sure that the carafe actually locks into the base, also to prevent tipping. Lastly, as stated above, any more speeds than two is probably excessive. Add that to finding something with flat buttons, or a dial, for easy clean up and you should be good to go.

Well, I think I've hit it all. As I said earlier this is the only blender currently in my kitchen so I do use it, and it does work. I just stick to small batches of cold liquids and it's fine. When this roommate moves out (in about a month) I'll probably be looking for a glass caraffed, rubber topped, single shaped (most likely clover), heavy bottomed, two speed + pulse blender.