As with almost everyone this was my first guitar. I didn't know much about guitars then. Looking back if I could have chosen I would have gotten a HSS and it wouldn't be black. But hey. I plan on getting hotrails at the bridge. This guitar feels great, plays great, over all a great guitar, I just dont care for the twang brightness of the bridge. This is a great backup guitar for me, great main guitar for others. My jaguar and mustang are my to go guitars. My strat is black has so many scratches and chips dents and rust, but I love it. I love this guitar, its nice to play something different once in a while. Good tone, great sound, great playability, great starter guitar.

Grunger owns this item

My first love. This is what got me started a year and a few months ago. It was almost an impulse buy, I was shopping for a guitar because I wanted to get started. After browsing the used market, I decided to go for a new one because I didn't know what to look for in a used instrument. This has everything a beginner needs to get started. A very nice Strat (sunburst looks the best) a very OK amp, lead cable, extremely useful clip-on tuner, strap, gig bag, 3 Fender celluloid medium picks, a stand, and a instructional DVD that is pretty much a preview of Fender's instructional DVD, but it shows you some easy power chords to get you started. At $199 it's a good deal.

The good:
The guitar plays great, the action is nice and low, and a great playing guitar is a must for a beginner. Nothing will turn off a beginner more than a poorly playing guitar with high action. The sound is good too, the neck pickup has that nice bassy strat tone we all love. The bridge has that twangy brightness but it's a bit too bright for me. I usually use the bridge or bridge/center position; personal preference. Apart from the guitar, you'll appreciate the other things it comes with. The tuner is very accurate, and the guitar stand is extremely useful as well. Separately they cost about $20-25 each, so that alone is about a $50 value, give or take a few bucks.

The bad:
This is a very cheap guitar, my first one I had to return it because it had a faulty pickup selector switch. The second one had a bad output jack but I fixed it by grounding it better. Keep this in mind. The amp sounds ok on the clean channel and absolutely horrid with the overdrive button pushed in. It is more than enough for a beginner, you can always get an overdrive/distortion pedal since those are relatively cheap. The gig bag is very cheap as well, but it will keep your guitar from getting scratched, but it won't protect it from dings. It is also very uncomfortable when you carry it as a backpack due to the locking clips that dig in your shoulders when you carry it.

Overall, you can't go wrong with a $200 starter pack that comes with so many goodies that would otherwise cost you a lot more if bought separately. I sold the guitar and amp and made more than 50% of the price that I paid for the whole thing. I kept the stand, tuner, and guitar cable. One of the best $200 I've ever spent, it got me started on this journey I've been loving so far.

This was my first Electric guitar. The guitar sounds good with the SP-10 amp only on cleans and its overdrive channel which sounds like a little bit louder with a little gain. The amp is noisy for a 15w amp. The guitar sounds great on cleans and sounds okay on distortion.

pet415 owns this item