I would like to recommend an 8" dobsonian to your friend, but you say he knows nothing, so, he might get demotivated once he knows about collimation or just general maintenance. And decent astrophotography with a reflector is a whole 'nother maintenance/setup nightmare for beginners.
And then, I would also like to recommend a small 60mm FPL-53 doublet from Astrotech, it will work good with the optional field flattener when he gets into astrophotography and there is no collimation, but he wont see any DSOs visually, if he does, they will be featureless blobs (except for the Orion nebula of which some detail can be seen in 50mm binos). So, I'm not sure he would be satisfied with looking at wider field views of the planets. He will get good views of the Moon though.
Astrotech refractors:
https://www.astronomics.com/telescopes.html?___SID=U&dir=asc&filter_telescope_type=425&filter_telescopes=379&manufacturer=360&order=priceThe conclusion: tell your friend not to jump for any telescope before knowing more about all this and what your friend is actually expecting to see and photograph.
Sidenote: Another major thing that demotivates first-time astronomers are cheap eyepieces. If a refractor comes with Plossls, upgrade them.
