Kitchen Blenders

We are planning to do serious smoothies everyday for breakfast etc. So we need something that will grind whole fruit, frozen fruits, flax seeds, pine apple etc.

We saw vita mix does all this but costs $400!

Is it worth it?

The vita-mix is really good, but I bought the Kitchenaid ProLine model for half the price. It's simple, easy to clean, and I haven't found anything it can't turn into a powder of syrup in seconds. It has 1hp vs the vita-mix's 2hp, but 1 is more than almost any blender on the market & it's enough to pulverize matchbox cars so 2hp is probably overkill.