Wanted to leave a mini review after using this for a few weeks. I use it to make smoothies with crushed ice. I had a plug-in blender similar to this one but it had teeth on the blades and one of the selling points was that it could chew up ice cubes. It lasted quite a few years. I didnt know if this one could do as well, but I really liked that it was cordless and it was fairly cheap, so I bought it and thought I would experiment. I used full size cubes from a standard ice cube tray, yes doing it the old fashioned way! The blender bogged down a little and one of the cubes got briefly wedged between the blades and it made a strange sound but then quickly overcame it. I smelled the “hot motor” smell and even though the blender quickly recovered from the brief ice jam on its own, I decided that might be too much for it. I think it could shorten the life of the blender if I continued to put that much stress on the motor. These low powered mixers don’t seem to last very long anyway, and some aren’t really up to the task. To hopefully keep from overworking the motor, I started making special cubes for it, only filling the trays halfway. Its really no bother to have a small separate container of these flat ice cubes & the blender seems very happy now.
Battery life seems pretty good but I think its partly because I don’t abuse it and I baby it with special ice. 
Love not having to fight with a cord!