TE-30 BE Standard Series : Well worth the money!

Okay, now I bought this product to fill both curiosity and a tonal gap in my guitar arsenal.

The following comments, I believe, are an honest appraisal from an experience guitarist.

I have another HB guitar, the semi hollow CST-24HB. The quality of that guitar was good, in fact very good for the price point. Hence, I thought I'd try a really budget HB guitar!

With guitars at this price you have to be realistic and understand where corners are cut. Namely tuners, the nut, electrics, setup and to a certain degree pickups. The HB-CST-24 was twice the cost of this "Tele"

The quality of the body and neck , including fretwork in both guitars is astounding, for the price.

I changed p/u's on the CST-24, tuners as well and cut a graphite nut (the stock one was way to high. This transformed an already pretty good £172 guitar to a very good one with an extra £75 spend.

Ok, back to the "Tele" £88 , "CHEAP"! yes, poor electrics yes, dull p/u's - to a certain degree (simple, cheap "Tele mods" cured that).

New nut required to replace plastic thing.

Changed saddles to compensated brass ones.

Will change neck p/u for either P90 or Humbucker(NEVER liked tele neck p/u's even on a real Tele. Possibly change the bridge p/u at some point.

Tuners are awful, changing those to locking ones asap.

Now, BOTH guitars setup easily to a LOW action, lower than I usually want, intonation improved immensely with compensated saddles on the "Tele"

To summarize:

Pros:

*Emminently upgradeable to achieve a good guitar for another £60 (better than a certain well known makes budget series)

* Setup well, very well in fact.

* Body one piece solid ash!

* Neck, one piece maple.

* Looks great.

* Stock, for a beginner with someone to set it up, with no upgrades, is an absolute bargain.

* My upgraded one will be great!

Cons:

* Experienced players will need to spend a little to bring up to their standards.

* Poor electrics, neck p/u, nut and tuners.

* Needs a setup.(action, intonation,nut)

* Body is heavy

In summary, I am happy with this guitar. I knew it would need work and a little spent on it to achieve what I regard as a good guitar. For a beginner it's a steal (after a setup)