RG7421-WNF : OK for the price

Does the job as an entry level 7 string. Requires some serious tuning though.

Out of the box experience: As expected for a an instrument that came straight of Indonesia and was probably exposed to many temperature and humidity variations.

Wood was extremely dry, neck had a big bow, and the nut was sitting far too high above the frets to allow for smooth action or proper intonation tuning. After lowering the nut by a good millimeter, changing the stock strings, tightening the truss rod, intonation and pickups adjustment, + a fair amount of polish, guitar came to life.

The good: neck is relatively pleasant, tuning is surprisingly stable.

The bad: the nut ruins it all. Having to take it out to sand it off from the bottom was not expected. Even the string slots are not cut cleanly. This will probably get upgraded to a Black Tusq.

Pickups: midrangey and a bit noisy but nevertheless warm and sweet sounding. not the clearest in the lows but ok for blues tones. Sound far warmer than entry level EMGs. For serious metal or recording, an upgrade should still be considered.

Fretwork: not as good as a Prestige that cost four times as much, but roughly ok. Some scratches on the upper side of the fretboard that look ugly but don't harm playability.

Update after 6 months: 3 frets went loose around 6th-8th position and required replacing by a proper luthier. As of today it plays ok with a proper nut and some fretwork, but overall, this guitar was too much trouble for what it is worth. The walnut natural finish is wearing out in an ugly way also.

Update after 3 years: Adding back some stars, as surprisingly, this is still my main guitar and it gets played almost daily (I am not gigging though).

It ended up being pretty good after letting the wood cure, applying a ton of oil, changing the nut for a Black TUSQ XL, and of course replacing the stock pickups with a pair of Di Marzio D Activators.

Apart from the cosmetics, that guitar is just comfortable and light, it resonates well, stays relatively well in tune, and the neck is thin and fast (warning: this is the 2016 model with the basswood body. Newer models come with a mahogany body and are way heavier, they also seem to have also a thicker neck).

My problem now is that the frets are getting serious wear marks, but this is a rather good thing, isn't it?