Decent enough for a beginner to learn on (not for lessons but self learning). I had to put the bridge on myself and rosin the bow initially (no instructions included). The g string is really muddy and the d string can have a slight background squeak a bit. The rosin is very hard and smooth so almost nothing will come off on the bow initially until you get a file or knife and lightly scratch the surface. One of the bow hairs broke off the first day and I had to clip it off with a nail clipper but none broke since.
Definitely order new strings for the violin when you get into it enough and want a huge upgrade. The bridge also didn't include notches or any indicator of where the strings go and likely wasn't tailored to the particular violin. It's not actually too hard to do the easiest 20% of the tailoring for the bridge to get 80% of the improvement. If you have proper measuring tools, fine grit sand paper (sorry luthiers, but will fit the instrument an order of magnitude better then nothing and the violin isn't worth enough for it to make sense to take it in), and some Scotch tape you can better fit the feet of the bridge to the violin and mark the string locations. Some cutting down of the bridge may be necessary but it actually wasn't for mine specifically, the strings were the proper height range over the fingerboard and bridge cut already to the right relative hight.
To be clear, you can learn a lot without any upgrades or modifications. Don't be scared if you hear almost no sound when you first try to play because the bow needs to be rosined a ton. And there is a little bit of a break in period, it will sound a bit better after you practice a couple days. Mine holds tune really well so far but it varies I'm sure. Make sure to push the tuning pegs in when you tune because it is friction fit.
Theres a hole lot of gate keeping in the violin community and a ton of violins are labeled "vso's" when in reality they actually will tune and play and sound like a violin. I would guess the main reason for this is because a cheap violin will be far more likely to cause you problems if you take violin lessons and end up holding you up because of how little time you often get for the lessons. If you are going to pay to be taught and have limited lessons then I would say don't get this. If you are going to self learn and want to actually know the ins and outs of the instrument I would recommend this. You will start by learning to put the bridge up and position it properly and tune (use an app if you need), then you will need to rosin the bow a whole lot and it will play badly the first day. It will play a whole lot better after a couple days and you can continue from there in both learning to play and to improve your instrument. Again I think new strings will be the absolute biggest improvement you can make initially, some medium tension $23 prelude strings for example.
