Jester hit the nail on the head. Its the difference between an airplane driver and a pilot. How serious do you want to go. I'm one of the instructors in our club and suggest the apprentice 15e or the alpha 450. Neither is in your price range. Both are buddy box compatible and will teach you how to be a pilot. There are others and I tell the students to ask me before buying. You fly the plane and put it where you want it as opposed to just keeping the thing in the air. Just a quick story, at our last jet event a guy was sent to me that wanted instruction. He showed me a plane he already bought. It amounted to a 3 channel motor glider with a proprietary transmitter, that supposedly had buddy box capability. I looked it up and discovered that it does not buddy box with the standard transmitters we can support (Spektrum, JR, Futaba, Hitec, Airtronics). I told him you have to buy another transmitter and special cable. Turns out they dont sell the transmitter separate. He paid $100. I told him the best I can do is maiden it and trim it, then stand next to him and hope we can pass the transmitter back and forth. In the end, I think he will still need to upgrade to a 4 channel plane like the apprentice 15e to learn flight aerodynamics. I personally dont care what plane the student uses (glow, electric, gas) as long as the plane is not a toy. I'm not saying you cant learn on them, I think the path is longer. I recently soloed two people in less than 15 flights. The average person is 30 to 50 flights. I teach to a program (hopefully its fun to the student) that involves learning basic menuvers, how to handle emergency situations, basic aerobatics, and dead sticking.
Edwin

Forgot to mention, an instructor will also teach you how to repair. Just cause you have an instructor, doesnt mean you wont crash. Most of my students get at least some damage when learning how to land on wheels.