Difficult one to give advice on. I bought a Yamaha LA8 a year ago and had a really hard time choosing. It's a tad over the figure you mentioned though. I tried Yamaha, Takamine, Ovation etc bowl back electro acoustics which were in your sort of price bracket and they all played quite nicely. Unamplified the sound was a bit thin though. If you are thinking of an electro acoustic which you'll play amplified I imagine you can run it through an effects pedal and tailor the sound the way you want it. Then you can simply choose one which feels good to play. If you want to play acoustic (unamplified) your best bet is to say goodbye to the family, hit you local guitar shop and spend the weekend playing everything they've got!