In fact, the most basic problem with Android Studio for someone who never used before, is how bad the default application sample is. This is known territory, if you remember Visual Studio, it came with a /samples folder full of rubbish code samples. But the default application is just bad. It does not do anything meaningful, it uses a bad layout model (constrained layout) ; it also does not come with simple code snippets for logging stuff in the output console, or show a modal box. In a nutshell, it does not come with anything relevant for someone who never used it before.
The crap does not stop here, suffice to say. But Android Studio could come a long way with a better, useable, default application sample.

Oh and by the way, if it came with all gradle run-time and one or two virtual devices, all packed in the sample installer, that would also make it less crazy like sometimes it seems building a trivial project requires the download of many pieces, none of which you asked for.