In this review
Verdict
What stays the same when you step down
Both FB2 grills carry the same sheet everywhere except size. A digital control board that moves in 5°F steps. A range of 180 to 500°F. The Flame Broiler lever for direct flame. Two tiers of porcelain-coated steel racks. A 5-year warranty.
Shopping a size class down in pellet grills and smokers usually costs you something quieter than capacity. The small model gets the cheaper controller, or the warranty drops two years, and you only catch it with both sheets open at once. Not here. The two read identically, which is either generosity or the discovery that building one control board is cheaper than building two.
A 5 pound hopper needs supervision
That depends on one thing, and it is not how many people you are feeding. It is how often you are prepared to check fuel during the cook.
A pellet grill can manage the fire only while pellets keep reaching the auger. Five pounds is a small reserve, and burn rate moves with the set point, weather and pellets. That makes any single runtime promise unreliable.
The practical issue is a long cook. The 500FB2 offers much less margin than the 700FB2, so plan fuel checks around the manual's operating guidance and stay able to respond to an alarm or fault. The larger hopper reduces refill frequency. It does not make outdoor fire safe to leave unattended.
For shorter cooks, fill it at the start and check it when you spritz or wrap. That is a reasonable trade for a smaller grill when maximum hopper reserve is not the reason you are shopping.
Two rack tiers share the 518 square inches
The 518 square inch total covers both rack tiers, not one continuous cooking surface.
The upper rack is useful for buns, finished sausages and food that needs gentler heat. Against its own sibling the comparison is clean because the 700FB2's 747 square inches is counted the same way. If sizing is the part you are stuck on rather than brand, what size pellet grill do you need works through the usable surfaces.
Searing here is a lever, and it wants tongs
The controlled ceiling is 500°F. That is a good roasting temperature and a mediocre searing one, which is the standing complaint about every pellet grill ever built. The answer here is a lever called the Flame Broiler, which slides a plate aside and opens a slot over the fire. It is a marketing name for a hole. It is also a genuinely useful hole, and the 700FB2 gets the identical mechanism.
Open flame under dripping fat behaves the way open flame has always behaved. Flare-ups are included at no extra cost. This is a stand-there-with-tongs job and not a set-it-and-go-inside one. If searing in your head looks like a gas grill's dedicated burner doing the work while you chop parsley, neither FB2 is that grill. A lever still beats a hopeful thermostat, as long as nobody pretends the lever is automatic.
The smaller grill keeps the usual pellet chores
Years on an older Traeger taught me the three things every pellet grill asks for, and none of them are negotiable.
Pellets first. A pellet grill burns fuel every hour it is lit, including the hour it spends climbing to temperature, and you buy that fuel by the bag for as long as you own the thing. Damp pellets swell, swollen pellets jam augers, so a dry bin is not an accessory. It is part of the purchase, along with a cover if the grill sleeps outdoors.
Power second. This is an appliance with a fire inside it, not a fire in a box. It wants an outlet within reach of wherever you cook, which quietly disqualifies the far end of a long yard and every campsite without a hookup. Nobody thinks about this until the extension cord comes out.
Ash third. Every pellet leaves some, it gathers around the fire pot, and the two complaints that trail this whole category both start in the same place: a temperature that wanders for reasons no controller can explain, and grease pooling under a mechanism that opens onto flame. Follow the manual's cleaning interval and method. Let the shutdown cycle finish, unplug the grill and wait until everything is fully cold; do not put an ordinary vacuum near ash that may still hide an ember.
Confirm assembled size before delivery
The available retail dimensions describe the carton rather than the assembled grill. If it has to pass a side gate, climb steps or turn through a narrow yard, measure a floor model or confirm the assembled dimensions with Pit Boss before delivery.
When the 700FB2 is the better buy
One condition. Long cooks make frequent fuel checks a burden. The 700FB2 costs more and eats more patio, and its 21 pound hopper is the reason it exists: more reserve between scheduled checks. Pit Boss 700FB2 vs 500FB2 puts the numbers side by side, and the 700FB2 review covers the bigger grill on its own.
If frequent checks during long cooks are not a problem, the 500FB2 keeps the shared controls in a smaller package. The trade is simple: less patio and less hopper, with the same need to keep pellets dry either way.