in question of practicality,i like the blender, its very simple to model and texture,and when you finish you works in there, you can export to other programs, so you can implement your models and do things that you can't in blender.
but, Maya is a kind of same of blender just with a few differences. i recommend that you try, least once the blender, it is free,and useful, sorry about my words, i'm Brazilian.