If you're just learning, there's not a lot of point in dropping big cash on an instrument you may end up hating.
Ovation, Yamaha, Martin, Takamine and Taylor all make great guitars, but they tend to be pricier. You may benefit from a Fender or Epiphone, something cheaper, to start with. Those could easily be had for <$300 and have decent build quality and sound.
When you first start, your fingers are going to hate you. Your fingertips will get chewed up, and you'll probably bleed a bit until you develop callouses, so definitely bear that in mind. It'll probably be a good couple of months of casual playing before you get a good base going. Before playing, definitely take a couple of minutes and stretch your fingers out and do some finger exercises to warm up, like
this. Like it says in the link, hand exercisers are pretty worthless, and could do more harm than good on your joints and ligaments, especially if you try to do too much when you're just starting out.