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As stated previously, your personal circumstances will make a difference to what you should be considering. My comments will mainly point out considerations for getting a goto of some sort as this is what I selected. People who selected other types of scope may like to point out their criteria to you so you can get a balanced view.
Unfortuantely, whatever you buy, Astronomy (to the eye) will be pretty much black and white. The planets will offer some colour and the odd stars will add a little sparkle to the eyepiece, but otherwise it will all be black and white...sorry.
My first scope, I won't count the 60mm I got 30 years ago, was an 8" GoTo. I figured I don't have time to spend outside at night trying to navigate to one object and then search out the next so I only considered a computer controlled mount of some sort. After a couple of months playing around I was able to set it up with reasonable accuracy in about 5 to 10 minutes and can spend the rest of the time look rather than searching. I am also a computer programmer, so a goto is an obvious choice (although the use of gotos in computer programming is very much frowned upon). You will find though, that a goto of this size is not highly portable as it takes up most of the boot space. A dob will be much easier to transport and faster to get going if you want to just "get out there" and the battery won't go flat.
If you are interested in photography, you will need to climb a pretty steep learning curve (I haven't started my journey yet).
Most of the gotos, with the exception of some of the newest types or gps, will need at least some rudimentary knowledge of star names. On several occasions, mainly in the winter, I have had to try to identify suitable alignment stars using the planisphere because none of the familiar ones (usually summer) were visible. I guess I can still only identify a few dozen without referring to something.
You will also have to decide how much "maintenance" you are willing to do. A refractor is pretty well ready to go all the time while a Newtonian will need alignment of the optics (depending on how "fussy" you are, but the procedure is not "impossible"), a Schmidt will "fog up" on cold nights more than other designs. You will also have to contend with mozzies attacking you.
I see you are in the SE of Melbourne, if you would like a peek through mine at some time, send me a message on IIS and we can organise some time. Just beware, my wife loves to sprout her little astronomical buzz words to visitors.
Overall, I think everyone on the forum wishes you many years of observing whatever scope you get.
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