I recently purchased a new Mexican Tele for a backup rythm guitar. I thoroughly tested the actual guitar I was buying and though it had been played by others at the store, it was already tweaked by the techs and from my experience almost every electric guitar needs some tweaking to be optimum. I found no issues with the electrics, the switches and pots aren't high end but these had no issues to report. I've read that most folks change out the pickups after a short while but this one has a good sound through a 70's Marshall Tube and a later Roland Jazz Chorus and works well for what it will be used for "as is". I also play it through an older BOSS BR8 with tremelo effects and get a real vintage sound with the neck pickup. Tuners seem to hold tune well. I prefer beefier tuners but these are appropriately sized for the smaller headstock. I did notice some variations in the maple necks while looking at several of these new and used guitars and chose one without any dark streaks or knots that I thought may cause issues down the road. I got the artic white because it just looked more vintage to me and I am vintage myself. I wasn't expecting a custom shop tele at this price and played it through several amps before purchasing. My son has the Mexican Strat at the same price and I'd advise you heavy rockers to go with the strat too. I chose this Tele over a Gretsch Pro Jet and a solid body Epiphone that were both around the same price.

I have a 2004 MIM Telecaster. I love this guitar more than anything! I have a Seymour-Duncan STHR-1 pickup in the bridge which gives me a chunky Les Paul tone, and I can still crank out that sweet bluesy tele sound from the neck pickup. With that being said, build quality is a little shaky. Both of my knobs and my pickup selector cap had came off within the first two months of my owning the guitar but I'm not here for aesthetics. This guitar holds a tune no matter what and plays like a dream! My favorite guitar, I'll never get rid of it.

I'm lucky enough to have numerous guitars, including American Fender, Gibson and Gretsch. Hands down, this is my favorite guitar, and the one I pickup and play 80% of the time. I bought mine in Canada 2 years ago, because I was on on the road and needed something to play. In it's original form it was pretty cool, the tone unplugged was realy warm, but when plugged in it wasn't quite what I thought it should be and there was considerable hum. Then I played a Fender USA Hot Rod Tele and loved the tone - that got me thinking. I swapped out the pickups for a Seymour Duncan Vintage bridge and a mini-humbucker for the neck. I copper shielded the entire body cavity and swapped in a new pickguard to accomodate the mini-humbucker. The results were INCREDIBLE. Zero Hum, Tone is fabulous. There was never any issues with the action, I've never touched it, it's been perfect since I bought it. The tuning is the most stable of anything I own. I prefer this over my very nice Les Paul You need to hunt for one with a good neck - lots of variability there, but there are good ones. This thing is AWESOME. I'm ready to buy about three more and set them up with a variety of pickups, etc. Incredible value and with a little work they can be unbelievably good.

I have only had a few electric guitars, but I've had acoustic guitars (Martins) for over 40 years. For the money this is the best deal you'll ever get. The bridge pick up is appropriately bright and the neck pick up can give you the smooth "Stormy Monday" Blues sound. Run it through the right blues driver pedal and the sound can't be beat. I run it through a Digitech RP series pedal and into my amp with a Motion Sound rotary speaker.......Man, the sounds that come from it are unreal...

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