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I can recommend the Orion 100mm tabletop dobsonian. Its a surprisingly good scope for a cheap small boring looking telescope. Its eyepieces are 10mm and 25mm and are very good for included eyepieces (often the real weak point in the optical train of beginner scopes). Being a small scope its dead easy to take on a trip or get outside when the interest bites or to show off the sky to friends and children at short notice. As I mostly do astrophotography its a scope I continue to use just to look around the sky while my other gear is busy capturing images. So it doesn't go to waste and good for sharing with others when you have a more elaborate setup and people queing to look through the eyepiece.
Getting into the hobby a poor initial purchase can disappoint and discourage continuing, so typically those cheap scope especially shop rebranded ones offer poor and uncomfortable viewing and use but look impressive sitting in the corner of the room where they usually stay because they are useless for actual viewing. A small dobsonian from a telescope store rather than department store, will give good views and a solid starting point to progress and learn. Binoculars are also great but bewar about size and being refraction optics chromatic aberation and eye relief not to mention weight all contribute to practicality and continued interest. Do not buy cheap chinese ones from sunday markets, buy brand name optics. I use Pentax mostly, recently bought some 8x20 ish ones which are awesome. Took me time to research for a friend and this model was a sweet spot I thought would be good for astro and they are, compact too and fantastic terrestrial binos and i bought a pair for myself too (Pentax UP 8x 25 i think) and they are better than my similar spec Leica binos. Look for specs with long eye relief and higher relative brightness. Magnification I dont think is very important especially starting out. the more you magnify the steadier you have to hold the binos which can be frustrating.
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