R-458MN WH Progressive Series : Sum of parts greater than whole

Bought this guitar for a taste of 8 string with the idea of replacing down the road. What I didn't expect was how playable it was out of the box.

Action is great and the 3way switch and knobs feel fairly solid.

Pickup casings are plastic-y and light feeling.

Neck feels amazing, lovely finish though you may need to oil your fretboard as mine was dry (which is to be expected at most price points)

Fretting is decent and the nut fits well, though I did have some roughness on the higher frets so will be giving those a polishing.

Machine heads are definitely something I will be replacing soon, they reflect the price point fairly accurately.

Once I stretched the strings for a few minutes the guitar stayed in tune and has continued to do so.

The pickups are much brighter than I had anticipated (to my delight) and seem to lend themselves to a clean tone. The difference between bridge/split/neck tones aren't a million miles apart which is nice.

Features: 3 STARS

Has only the basics (2 HB, 1 volume and 1 tone knob, no locking tuners etc.)

Sound: 4 STARS Each pickup has a distinct tone and they're hot enough to play anything.

Quality: Build quality was much better than I expected. Great action, decent fretting and alignment seems fine. The fretboard is very dry and some of the higher frets do need polishing.

TOTAL: 5 STARS All these for the price of 158 euro is just insane to me. I wouldn't blink if a 1,000 euro guitar had the same quality control.

A Side note, delivery came in 8 working days and the customer service were fast and helpful when I needed to amend my order. Very light packaging is something to consider.