My mom wants to invest in a nice set of clippers to trim our dogs with. We have toy poodles, so we don't necessarily need anything heavy duty, just something that will last and perhaps has replacement blades so that we could just replace those and not the whole unit.
I've gone through several clippers over the years. One of my adopted (so nobody thinks I'd actually desire this coat) dachshunds had a "soft wire" coat- wire genes + long hair genes make an awful, terrible coat for a hound. She was like a mountain goat. Ugh. (ETA: TO HER COAT, not to her- she was the best!)
My favorites of the bunch were both Andis- I'd recommend the Easy Clip set. It's not super expensive, sturdy, the blades are replaceable (all of mine are), and it's pretty cool and quiet as far as the sub $100 clippers go! And cool and quiet are probably the most important features for someone with quick little dogs.
It's definitely easy to do yourself once you get used to it- good luck!