just by chance one of the come dine's this week had chappy trying to blend strawberries in jug blender - he actually had to put a wooden spoon in to start the blending off (the ingredients just turned in the jug otherwise).
i use the cheapo hand blender from argos having had a kenwood chopper for many yrs which was brill until it broke and price to fix was horrendous (like solarsplace's - which looks good - just the vol at 350ml is a little too small for me to consider upgrading).
the big thing for me about the hand blender is the ease of use. i also know not all hand blenders are the same - i have expensive philips which is useless for curry work (it's used by the girls and they reckon it's brill - cakes etc).