ST-20MN CA Standard Series : Good If You Know How

So I bought this guitar just as a supplement for a set with HB Extreme-76, like if I have to pay quite a money for delivery, I want to order as much as I can in a single order, and I had just enough free money to get this one.

I have another guitar, a legendary beginner guitar, Her Majesty Squier Bullet Stratocaster (HSS version). I only play for almost 9 months, and it was bout time I get interested in new guitars. So this review will largely be based on a comparison between this and Squier.

Pros:

- beautiful af. Finish is just perfect, it looks more expensive than Squier (AWT color), despite actually costing me almost 3 times less (Fender production pricing in Russia is a little bit... insane, to say the least)

- has 22 frets

- gives you an idea of how SSS configuration works (that is a thing in my case)

- frets are very well leveled (contrary to Squier)

- arrived in perfect setting

- tremolo system allows you to achieve lower notes (goes down 3 half steps, while Squier only goes 2 half steps down)

Neutrals:

- neck is way thicker and feels completely different

- tuners aren't as bad, nor are they any good

- pickups actually can deliver up to classic heavy metal (almost as good as Squier's humbucker), and they aren't bad, but they surely do suffer from their cost

- also B string saddle had one of the screws totally screwed up, I couldn't turn it at all, so luckily I had some old Squier saddles to replace it with

Cons:

- rough fret ends (they probably won't kill your hands, but they really needed work)

- nut is a joke (not even a funny one)

- mine's contact would get lost from time to time (if I was moving the guitar while playing, and I was moving a lot) - an issue with screwing the hole where you connect the cable

So what i did to it was:

- changing the nut to GraphTec (the one that matches these dimensions is too low, so I didn't make it go to the bottom of the slot and it's stuck midway; still A LOT better than stock one)

- screwing the cable hole properly - now it has no connection issues

- sanded all the fret ends (unfortunately, this is the only type of work I'm not skilled at, so I only had a sand paper and a rough idea of how I want it to be)

- changed string trees to Gotoh (just for memes)

- immediate restringing (stock strings were even more of a joke than the nut)

- screwing properly everything there was

And I ended up having a guitar that rivals Squier, which is also modded by the time! I think if I change pickups to more serious ones, learn to solder and to shield, this will be a guitar that will last for decades!