Best Choice Products 39in Full Size Beginner Electric Guitar Kit with Case, Strap, Amp, Whammy Bar - Jet Black

A small section of finish (red) was missing from lower front of guitar at strap button. This was done apparently at factory because the shipping box was in good condition showing no signs of outside damage. Even though this item was damaged we decided to keep it and repair it ourselves.

This guitar rig is a great deal for the price. I typically play a much more expensive guitar, but bought this just to have something to keep at my in-laws house to play when I visit 2 or 3 weeks a year. If you are a beginning guitarist, you cannot go wrong with this rig, but you will need to get a more experienced guitarist to perform quite a bit of setup. First of all, the guitar is beautiful. The finish is quite nice, although there were a few very minor cosmetic flaws, but nothing to get upset over (not at this price). The entire guitar was a little bit dirty from the factory, but just needed a quick wipe down, no big deal. As for the true measures of quality, here goes: The neck was perfectly straight, with no twist at all. I wasn't expecting a perfectly straight neck at this price, so this was a great surprise! The action was way too high, of course, but easy to adjust with the included hex drivers (2 sizes). The intonation also needed to be adjusted. The "floating" tremolo was not floating at all, and I initially thought it was bolted directly to the body as was thus nonfunctional. However, it turns out it just needed a LOT of adjustment of the springs. I'm not sure what "style" of tremolo it's called (I'm used to a Floyd Rose tremolo), but it's just the basic style you see everywhere on Strat knockoffs. Of course, after all this, I had to readjust the intonation and action again. Again, if you don't make these adjustments, the guitar will be difficult to play and will not sound as good. So, if you don't know how, get a friend or a local guitar shop to help you. You will be very glad you spent a little bit of time to make this guitar play well. The strings are nothing special, but also not total junk like I was expecting. It shipped with the strings tuned very low, I assume to avoid breaking during shipping. It comes with an extra set of strings too. The strings were very dirty however, and made my fingers filthy for the first several days. I don't think it was nickel coating rubbing off, just very dirty strings. The frets are ok, cut well enough and not sharp on the ends, but maybe just a little rough. You can feel a little more friction when bending than on higher end guitars (I'm used to playing on super smooth steel frets), but it really wasn't too bad. For a "beginner" guitar, they are fully sufficient. The tuning machines are also basic, but they don't slip and do stay in tune well. Even heavy tremolo usage didn't put the guitar too far out of tune (after initial string break in), which again was a great surprise. The electrical hardware is very basic, and there's a good amount of hum, which is to be expected for single coil pickups. However, the potentiometers used for volume and tone are a little scratchy (low quality) and there are positions that make the hum much better or worse. On mine, I discovered I can keep the volume at max on the guitar and just adjust the amp, and there was no hum at all. Any other positions generated excess hum. I have no idea what kind of wood the body is made of. You can see through the translucent finish that the wood is not the optimal cut for best acoustics, but really no one should expect that, except by pure accident, on such a low cost guitar. The neck appears to be maple, with a rosewood fret board. The back of the neck is smooth with no blemishes. It comes with an 10W amp, and cable. Once end of the cable is L-shaped, which was a nice unexpected bonus (I prefer this type of connector for my other guitars with an edge jack, but it doesn't matter for this Strat knockoff, with the jack on the face). 10 Watts is not much, but totally sufficient for basic practicing. It fills the room with sound just fine, but probably won't make you go deaf. There is an overdrive button, which produces distortion that is pretty thin, but again, it's only a 10W amp. I was surprised there was any overdrive at all. It does have a headphone jack, which I didn't test. The rig comes with a huge pick, which is so large as to be totally useless. I just threw it away. It also comes with a basic gig bag, a little thicker than paper, but enough to keep the dust off for the 6 month stretches between visits to my in-laws. Unfortunately, the guitar does not come with a strap, which would have been a very nice, not too costly addition. I can't understand why it doesn't, since the rest of the rig is very complete. Overall, this is a no-brainer for the price. At this price (I've seen it on various sites during summer 2016 between $80 and $100), its an easy 5 stars! In a blind test, I could see someone easily mistaking this guitar for one that's double or triple the price (once it's set up properly, of course). And the 10 W amp, patch chord, gig bag, and extra strings are a great bonus. Hopefully this level of quality is consistent, and I didn't just get lucky. I just wish it also came with a strap, and was a little cleaner coming from the factory.