[Hectic]

There is a sticky about choosing your first rifle. Definitely don't buy a bottom end gun. Your first gun with some mags and a battery should run you about 500 bucks. Regardless what brand you buy, (within reason) if you buy a G & G top tech and a cpl extra mags and factor in the tax you'll be in the 500 range.
say you like AK's you can grab an LCT and some mags for about the same cost.
You could get a G &P or vfc all in and around that 500 mark (keeping it bare bones obviously, you start looking at a VFC 417 and mags it starts to add up)
If you like the g and g guns (or that's what you can find close to you) tthey are decent guns, if you go top tech. Also (as with most stock guns) you'll likely want to upgrade the hop rubber and inner barrel right away, not sure about the gearbox as I haven't looked inside a gandg yet but I'm sure someone will know if they have a weak point that should be adressed also AFAIK most folks disable the "blow back" on these guns, not sure if 8th a reliability thing or and efficiency thing tho.
that being said if you are on a tight budget all you need to play is good boots, and good eyepro (both can be had for 200 bucks or so) and a gun with a high cap mag.
With these three things you can test the waters and then plung later when you have funding.
Tho I would still suggest anything besides the low end gandg even if you look at say a JG/Echo1 you can get a dent gun for 250 bucks or so. Beter than the base gandg.
and again any gun you get I really suggest hop rubber and inner barrel. Those are going to be the big 2 for range and accuracy (along with quality heavy ish bb's) then if it shoots good only some of the shots that a consistency issue (like air seal problems someplace) and that can be hit or miss on the cheaper guns as well, parts aren't too steep but if your not handy labour can be.