I recently purchased a Celestron Regal 100. I think the 65mm regal in that line is in your price range. I'm mostly using my scope to watch ships on the river a couple miles away and some astronomy so far. I haven't gotten it out in the field yet, but have tested it as thoroughly as I can from up on my hill. Two points really stand out as I'm using the scope, it takes a really sturdy(heavy and/or expensive) tripod to stabilize it enough to make out moderate detail, and it doesn't take much mirage to make the upper end of that magnification(Regal 100 is 22-66X) pretty useless.
You might want to consider a good tripod in that budget if you don't already have one. My scope didn't come with one but from the reviews I read even the better scopes come with essentially worthless tripods. For 400 I think I would look at an Alpen 788 Scope and the sturdiest tripod I could find with the remainder.