Almost everyone here will recommend buying a used guitar as your first. Any moderately used guitar (i.e. not very old, but not very new, either) for $150 USD will be a decent starter guitar.

If your heart is stuck on buying a new guitar, though, and you can manage $200 USD or so, check out Yamaha or Simon & Patrick guitars. S & P might only be available here in Canada, though; I'm not too sure. I have a 6-year-old Yamaha FG-412S, and it sounds sweeeeeet!