Excellent advice that William MG just gave you there. I agree that an electric is slightly easier to learn on. Your choice (acoustic vs. electric) should be somewhat tempered by whether you are more moved by acoustic/folk type sound or electric power chords/jazz electric sounds. But everything else being equal I think most would agree electric is slightly easier to start on. I'm not 100% in agreement with William's amount of depreciation of gear. But one thing is for certain and that is that a lot of beginners "found the dedication required to learn guitar a bit much and up it (their gear) goes for sale".

And Wiiliam makes a good point about low cost options from major names and retailers. A few years ago, after retirement, Santa brought me a Yamaha Pacifica starter kit. All my life I wanted to play and finally I could start. And start I did. But after a while I saw all the posts on these forums about expensive guitars and I reasoned the problem I wasn't making more progress was because I had a cheap guitar. So, of course, off to the store I went and I bought a Gibson Les Paul and a Fender Blues Jr. amp.

And, of course, I made more progress. It never ocurred to me that I was progressing due to more practice due to the excitement of a new guitar.

But a couple months later I saw my poor, lonely, dejected, little Yamaha Pacifica staring at me from the guitar stand in my practice room. I picked it up for the day's practice. And guess what?!?! It played great! I practiced every bit as well that day.

Sorry about the long story. But my point is that there are some great starter packages very close to William's $200 target. If you can afford and want a new Fender Strat or Gibson Les Paul and expensive amp, go for it! But there are some great packages such as the Fender Squire ones.

Good luck and have fun!