I purchased my Mini-Prep from a beloved local store because I was given a $25 gift certificate, and the price ($29.99) was comparable to amazon's and fit nicely with my gift certificate.  I purchased my first Robot-Coupe in, I'm pretty sure, 1983, and have used it and its successors constantly,  I bought my first Mini in probably the mid-1990's, and  I purchased this new Mini because mine died years ago after very heavy duty.  So I'm no stranger to food processors, full-sized and mini.  After reading David Lebovitz's blog about minis, I thought "this is exactly what I'm going to do with my gift certificate!"  However,  I'm so disappointed in this Mini-Prep.  The first thing I asked it to do was to chop up a Ghirardelli 60% chocolate bar (for brownies, so it didn't have to be perfect)--but it wouldn't even begin to do this even with only half of the bar inside.  So I hauled out the big Cuisinart,  and the chocolate bar instantly turned into chocolate chips.  Next task:  1 ounce of dried shiitake mushrooms which I wanted to turn into a powder for a stew.  Half of the mushrooms turned into a powder.  I dumped those into the stew, returning the chunks to the Mini.  Some powder, but still big chunks.  I pulsed, I tried low and high, I tried continuous, but no luck.  So I broke up the big chunks with my fingers and, eventually, the full ounce of  the mushrooms made its way into the stew.  Third task: almonds.  Similar result:  1/4 of the nuts turned to powder but 3/4 of the nuts remained almost whole almonds.  Again, I broke out the Big Cuisinart and made the chunks go away.  I'm so disappointed:  I was hoping to use the Mini for very small amounts of the kind of things that are hard to keep under control on the cutting board:  Nuts, chocolate, dried stuff.  Not to mention avoiding hand-washing a knife and cutting board as opposed to the easy cleanup with itty-bitty Mini parts on the top shelf of the dishwasher.  I guess I can use this Mini only for things that I could easily crush with my fingers anyway--perhaps Feta cheese?  I should have paid at least $10 more and bought a Mini-Prep with more firepower.  I definitely wasted my $29.99.