My girlfriend's first reptile was a panther chameleon.

He's still thriving some 9 months after she got him.. not exactly a super long time to prove that they can be kept by beginners, but chams are notorious for going down fast if there is a problem.

We know much more about how to keep chams happy in captivity these days than we did even just 10 years ago.

You can't go wrong with a panther or a veiled chameleon.

They have different requirements than the more 'bullet-proof' reptiles that tolerate wide temperature ranges and only need to be feed weekly or bi-weekly, but if you read up and talk to people who keep them successfully, you'll likely have no problem keeping a chameleon.

As for ones that don't need a 'huge' amount of space and are calm/handle-able.. there are different degrees of what people consider 'huge' or 'handle-able'.

You'll be looking at a 3 or 4 foot tall cage with 2-4 square feet of ground space for your cage size.

We handle our chameleon on occasion, but we don't take him out every day. He doesn't mind coming out when we're doing a bit of cage clean-up or for a quick photoshoot. I'd say on average we only take him out for maybe 10-20 minutes on average a week.