Break it down first -
What kind of fish are you going to be chasing? If it's pan fish and the occasional large game fish, there's no reason for an auger larger than 6". If you're going to be using tipups fishing for large game fish, you'll want an auger larger than 6" - any auger greater than 6" really should be powered if you want to make a number of holes in a day.
Where will you be fishing? If your area doesn't get more than 10" of ice in a year, than it really doesn't matter. If you're getting more than 16" of ice in a year, you'll want to look into a powered auger of some kind.
How much do you want to spend? You said you were just getting into the sport, but there's all different levels of pricing and quality out there that can influence what you have available. We have all kinds of folks on here, and if anyone could make anything work in a way it wasn't designed to, it'd be an icefisherman.
So here's my recommendations -
If you can only have ONE auger - I'd go with the new Nils 6" Hand Auger with drill adapter (the orange one out now). This would give you a fantastic hand auger that would cover 90% of everything you'd want to do with it, and in the event you have too much ice to hand drill, you can easily attach an 18v cordless drill and be back in business.
If the Nil's is too much cost, a Strikemaster Lazer in 5" will work well also, but not cut as nice due to the inline handles. Strikemaster used to sell offset handles which bring the lazer on par with the Nils - but it's additional cost, and I don't know if they're still available. You can find replacement blades cheap and local, and drill adapters are less than $20 if you need power. The hole size is slightly limiting, IMO, but fine for panfish.
If you want to go straight to power - I'd look at a Eskimo S33 Stingray in 8". They can be had for very little money (around 260 or less if you find sales), aren't TOO heavy, and work very well with a company that supports its product. They're not the fastest out there, they do have quirks - like the gas cap - but for the money you'd be hard pressed to find a better value.
Notice I never mentioned Mora in the above posts? Don't get one - for the extra $20 you can get a Lazer and be happy.
I'd say start with a smaller hand auger first (5-6"), and then save for a power auger (8-10) and purchase at the end of the season when they're blowing them out on sale here in a month or two.
