For what it's worth...

...here's my experience with blenders. We latched onto a blender at a garage sale and found it worked very very well.  The blade slips in and out for easy cleaning. It is called Ninja. I have seen them at Walmart and Canadian Tire. We like it so much we bought one for Mike and Erin who make lots of smoothies. It crushes frozen fruit and ice quickly. It might be worth a look?