In head-to-head competitions in our test kitchen, standing mixers always outperform hand-held mixers. Simply put, a standing mixer offers greater flexibility and versatility. The most obvious difference is brute force. Any decent standing mixer can knead bread dough, but even the best hand-held mixer fails miserably at this task. A standing mixer also frees up the cook to take on other tasks.

While these two advantages are dramatic, for many day-to-day uses hand-held and standing mixers are actually quite similar. When making cake batters and cookie doughs, whipping cream, and beating egg whites, we have found that a hand-held mixer can yield the same results as a standing mixer-albeit a little more slowly. In addition, a hand-held mixer is much cheaper than a standing mixer, and it’s compact and easily transported.

Lack of power, however, isn’t the only complaint we’ve had with hand-held mixers. With a standing mixer, splattering isn’t much of an issue because the whisk sits deep in the bowl. A hand-held mixer, however, can spray both the counter and the cook as the beaters whirl away. When whipping cream, we found that most mixers splattered on some level, but the best mixers kept the mess in the bowl; the worst managed to propel flecks of cream up to eye level.

While all of the mixers were able to beat egg whites to stiff peaks, there was a difference resided in the “feel” of the mixer as it beat the whites; some felt unwieldy (and thus received a rating of “fair” on this task), while others felt controlled (and were rated “good”).

The test that really separated the winners from the losers was mixing peanut butter cookie dough. Unlike chocolate chip cookie dough, which is easy enough to mix by hand if necessary, thick, stiff peanut butter cookie dough requires a determined motor. Of the eight mixers tested, only two did not hesitate once the dry ingredients were added to the sticky mix of peanut butter, eggs, and butter. Four of the mixers struggled but ultimately managed to tough it out as the dough began to come together or the mixing speed was increased. One model could not complete this task and slid toward the bottom of our ratings. Somewhat to our surprise, wattage was not a good indicator of power. Our science editor explained that wattage is a measure of input-the amount of power a motor is taking in to operate. If a motor is not designed to work efficiently, it can require more input, or wattage, without necessarily delivering more output-that is, a stronger performance.

Secondary to power, although still significant, was design. Most of the mixers weighed in at around 2 pounds, 2 ounces, but some felt much heavier than others and were more fatiguing to use. For example, mixers with angled handles let you relax your elbow at your side. Those with horizontal handles (parallel to the machine’s body) make it necessary to lift your elbow to hold the machine upright. This quickly proved tiring. Balance of weight and the shape of the handle grip also affected fatigue. The number of speeds didn’t seem nearly as important as the range of power within those speeds.

We also liked those models with an on/off switch, which we considered a welcome safety mechanism-just in case the machine gets plugged in before the beaters are inserted. We were also big fans of swiveled cords, which allowed for easy ambidextrous use. A round cord design was also preferred to a flat cord with a crease up the center, because the former is much easier to clean.

Overall-and as expected-most of the mixers tested had their shortcomings. But our favorite was the total package: powerful, quiet, controlled, and compact. And considering the fact that our favorite standing mixer sells for about $250, maybe $70 (the cost of our favorite hand mixer) isn’t so unreasonable after all.

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