Fender Squier Debut Series Stratocaster Electric Guitar, Beginner Guitar, with 2-Year Warranty, Includes Free Lessons, Black with Matte Finish

Beautifully made neck, smooth frets, nicely set low action from factory. Intonation only needed slight adjustment. Nice satin/matt finish. Not a new beginner, but can tell this is a great guitar that one can learn with for a long time. Absolutely pleased and stoked to own a real Fender Strat at a price I could finally afford.

My particular guitar did not have any sharp fret ends and the fret tops looked to be polished, or at the very least did not feel rough at all. It was very playable right out of the box. Action was 1.5mm on low E at the 12th fret and even lower on the high E with no buzzing on any fret when played without a heavy hand. Intonation was spot on, on all but one string which wasn't off by much. The bridge was decked when I got it, floating it was the only change I needed to make. Truss rod did not need to be adjusted at all, there was a very slight bit of relief in the neck already. I didn't check the gap between string and first fret or closely examine the nut but there was no indication that the nut was causing any problems. The back of the neck, as YT reviewers have noted is pretty rough feeling. The satin finish looks and feels great and doesn't show finger grease like a glossy finish would. It weighed in at just under 7 pounds.Guitar seems to hold tune when lightly using the tremolo but the tuners are the real weak point of the guitar. They do work, and the guitar stays in tune, but the tuners are not very smooth feeling at all. Sometimes they'll feel very difficult to turn but then loosen up, sometimes it feels like the knob turns without doing much before having an effect. Sometime a slight twist of the knob makes too much of a change, so it is a bit difficult to make minor adjustments. They're not good but they are serviceable. They are the first thing I'd consider replacing. The tremolo block is also very thin so that's something else to consider swapping. I didn't play it a whole lot through an amp yet but initial impression is that it sounds decent. Bridge pickup seems a little shrill but dialing back the tone control makes it acceptable.For the beginner that this guitar is aimed at, I don't think you'd need to change anything right away. It is perfectly playable out of the box, all a new player needs to do is tune it up and start playing. That's the way it was with my guitar but of course this could vary. However, since some reviewers had the same experience it's clear Fender must be making some effort to setup the guitars before shipping them. The initial out of the box experience, in my opinion, is better than any Indio or Firefly I've had and better than or equal to most IYV or Harley Bentons that I got. Considering you get a very competitively priced guitar, from a major brand, that may not need any work at all (unlike most budget instruments) and the free 3 months of Fender Play I think this is a real winner for a beginning guitarist. I have no problem recommending it to any beginner or even experienced guitarist.

Here is a quick rundown. I received this on 11/29/2024. It was set to spec as far as the neck relief and string height. The tuners worked smoothly and held the tuning. The strings as fine. No sharp fret ends and the frets were highly polished. Confortable neck shape. The pickup switch felt and worked well and the tone and volumes were smooth. The output jack was properly tightened and works well. The pickups sounded just fine and the pieces aligned under the strings just as vintage ones do. It sounds very good unplugged. The trem arm screws in properly but the trem took a lot of pressure to work. This is really no issues and I am sure they did this to keep it in tune. If you are new to Strats, the vintage trem rarely ever stood in tune, don't use the trem as it is really for show in most Strats. In the real world it takes a lot of skill and know-how to get a Strat trem to work properly and costs more than the guitar to setup, which I am telling you will be impossible anyway. These are set with the rear decked on the body so it returns to tune meaning you can only go down. If you are learning you should learn to play for real and not be a poser playing with the trem. Leave the trem arm in the bag. There is nothing needed to be done or replaced to have a good guitar to learn on. It appears the price is so low as to be get you started and updating the phone app and taking lessons online and later buying a more expensive guitar, that is where they plan to profit. The guitar is like an when you buy a low cost inkjet printer for very little money and have to buy their ink forever. Is the guitar worth it ? Absolutely. Also buy a $30 or so case to keep it in might be a good idea. Realize if you are buying this for a gift for someone to learn on, most new players quit as they rather stare at their phone or play a video game so buying a low cost guitar is a good idea. The 2-year warranty is worth more than the guitar alone. Be careful removing the plastic on the pickguard and pickups, the pickguard plastic is very soft and scratches easily. After a few days I decided that the nut needed to be filed slightly for each string so I took care of that. I also lowered the action lower than Fender specs to 4mm with no buzzing. None of these things were out of the ordinary for a new Strat guitar. I am very happy with this guitar. After a few months after being too dry in my house the fretboard did shrink somewhat making for fret sprout (sharp frets past the edge of the fretboard. Fret sprout is not uncommmon even in much more expensive guitars. So I filed the edges and polished the frets when I was at it and put a set of Ernie Ball Super Slinky 9-43 (2223). Guitars are made of wood and wood is affected by moisture. That's life. I am still happy with the guitar. If you are just learning it is unlikely you will be running you hand up and down the neck so it may not matter at all if there is some fret sprout. It was not really that bad when it happened.