TE-30 BE Standard Series : Fabulous for the money!

I'll admit it straight away - I bought the TE-30 as a project guitar, so it was never intended to stay stock. But straight out of the box it was a really nice guitar, I'll get the (slight) negatives out of the way first - the body is quite heavy, which isn't unusual for ash. There was some muck on the fretboard which disappeared in no time with a bit of cleaner, and the machine heads felt a bit cheap and cheerful. Playability was great. Action was nice and the neck is comfortable and chunky in a good way. The pickups sounded great. The finish was very nice too. Just a ridiculously good T-style guitar for the price.

Now it has locking tuners, an Esquire scratchplate, no neck pickup, and a Bigsby B50. None of that was strictly necessary (though the tuners were a sweet upgrade).

Whether you're looking for an entry level Tele or the basis for a franken-Tele project, the TE-30 is a great place to start.