Neil Gundel | Monday, May 03, 2004
My experience is limited to the Omega 1000 and 4000. Both are very good machines, but one of them has some distinct advantages.
As the other reviewers have noted, this machine is very solidly built & should easily outlast the 15 year warranty. However, I think the model 1000 will probably last even longer.
Why? Because the 4000 is so much more pleasant to use that you will use it more, because the operating principle is a little different.
Both machines have a chute that you feed fruits & vegatables into. At the bottom of the chute is a stainless steel disc/blade that grinds up the food into a pulp.
On the 1000 model, the pulp is thrown out by centrifugal force into a drum that is just like a washing machine drum - it is perforated stainless that traps the pulp on the inside and allows the juice to strain out. Just like on a washing machine spin cycle, it is possible to get the contents out of balance so that the whole machine shakes & makes a real racket! This is very easy to do on the 1000 if you load apples or other foods with skins, because the skin will often stay intact so it has to go on one spot on the drum, throwing it out of balance like a pair of jeans. There are some "tricks" that help in this case, such as saving some carrots for this emergency. Many times feeding a carrot will stop the shaking.
Another consequence of the "spin-cycle" approach is that after you have feed a few pieces of fruit, the pulp in the drum can clog, trapping all the juice inside. This happens especially when you try to juice bananas, pineapple or strawberries.
The model 4000 works differently because the spinning drum is cone-shaped, which forces the pulp to ride up the sides of the drum for a brief period & then it flies out into a pulp ejector chute. This means the 4000 never gets the shakes like the 1000, and also the drum stays much cleaner, which allows you to keep juicing much longer. For example, this morning I juiced apples, carrots, celery and grapes in that order on both the 4000 and 1000. Although in both cases I got exactly 12.5 ounces of juice, the juice from the 1000 had no grape color and less grape flavor.
The other advantage of the 4000 is that it when you turn it off, it stops in just a few seconds. On the 1000, it continues to spin for much longer because of the heavy food in the drum, dribbling all the while and sometimes walking across your countertop!
So I give 5 stars to the 4000, and only 4 stars to the 1000. The 1000 does have an optional citrus juicing attachment that is rather nice. If you can't stand pulp, the 1000 also accepts some very inexpensive coffe-filter-like filters that virtually eliminate pulp from the apple-carrot-celery etc. types of juices. You really can't use it with tomatoes, strawberries, etc., because it will clog instantly.
Cleanup is pretty easy on both, once you get the hang of it. The only tricky part is getting the pulp out of the strainer. I use a stainless scrubby pad gently on both sides, which seems to work well on both models.
The 4000 gets the nod because it doesn't have any vices.