I am going to go against the grain a little on what people have said here.
I have been interested in Astronomy for many years and after a time away recently purchased a new scope as my previous one finally died after >20 years of service and it was an ex-department store 60mm refractor. it was not perfect but sufficient for most things. Would I buy one again - no, as there are better scopes now for cheaper than what I paid for it second hand 20 odd years ago. Yet it got a number of children interested in Astronomy, was portable and I used it for teaching a number of classes (no I am not a school teacher). I knew what the 60mm would do and more importantly what it would not do.
I recently, given the slow death of the 60mm, purchased a 70mm skywatcher refractor mounted on an EQ1 mount from Andrews (web-site above) for about $150 delivered to the door, they are now $199 - the Australian dollar and all that. I have since purchased a few extra higher quality eyepieces say for around $50-$60. The eyepieces that come with the scope are not too bad for a small scope but would fall over pretty quick in a larger aperture scope. The good thing about good eyepieces is that they independent of the telescope i.e. survive an upgrade.
I am enjoying the 70mm, it is permenantly set-up in the family room, can carry with one hand for a quick out the back door to have a look, the quality of the optics is much better than the 60mm and does nice things giving good views of M42, planets (shadows of Jupiter's moons etc), double stars, 47 Tuc, open clusters etc. It will never be as good as a 6" etc but is, in my opinion, a great starter. Couple it with binoculars (basic 7x50 or 10x50s) and some star charts (there are good quality free ones that are downloadable as pdf's that all you do is print them out) and there is more than enough to have a look at to get started before aperture fever sets in (and it will if there is any level of interest in astronomy).
I have had the small scope for a few months and been splitting double stars, resolving the outer stars of 47 Tuc (globular cluster), enjoying galaxies such as NGC253, 55, 300 etc and the myrid of open clusters around the place - looking forward to Carina coming higher again. It is handy for doing sun projection also which can be interesting now the sun is coming out of its minima.
The other advantage of the 70mm is that the kids use it and learn on it something that might cause concern with a >$300 telescope
Remember no telescope, no matter how good or large will show Hubble style pictures or colours of deep sky objects. Colour is visible in stars (some notice it more than others) more than anything else. Another limiting factor is the atmosphere itself which can limit viewing. Do not get fooled by telescopes that advertise high magnifications, magnification is not everything. great views can be had with only 45x to 150x, my main work-horse eyepieces are 36x, 60x and 90x.
Hope that helps,
Coen