This guitar is a gem. I was an early purchaser of the Highway 1 series from Fender before they realized they were pretty much giving them away and doubled the price. This is on par. Fender/Squier will eventually realize that these things are worth considerably more and jack the price up.

Sound
The neck pickup is pure single-coil Fender sound. In fact, this thing sounds more like a beefy Strat than my Texas Special Strat. The middle position is nice and creamy and the bridge pickup has some serious spank to it.

Features
I've read rumors that the pickups in this guitar are unbranded versions of a $160 set. The arguments are pretty compelling, and I have to say, the sound is right on. The looks of this guitar are amazing. It's definitely an eye-catcher.

Quality
Let's call this the fit and finish section. Notwithstanding my comment under Manufacturer Support, the fit and finish of this guitar are a solid 7 of 10. I have to be hypercritical to find something wrong with this guitar, and so, here are my very minor gripes. The setup was a little out... That is to say, I had to adjust the bridge saddles to fix some fret buzz and do a little intonation with the saddles... And I mean, a VERY little intonation. Picky people like me may want to tweak. Newbies won't know the difference. I pulled the neck and pickguard off and cleaned out some saw dust (which I usually do on all my guitars anyway).… read more Manufacturers seem to be cranking these things out at breakneck pace lately, and they aren't taking the time to clean sawdust out of their factories. Again, not a big deal.

Value
This is not a just great guitar for the price... This is a very, very good guitar for any price. In fact, this has become my preferred player and I own a few guitars that retail for over $2K. PLUS, if you want to tinker with some guitar electronics, this is the one to do it on. It's wired up dead simple, and cheap enough that you won't feel bad about practicing your soldering on it.

Manufacturer Support
This is the one big drawback. I bought this as a scratch n dent model, which Zzounds, AMS, MF and all other sellers claim are fully tested and are 100% working according to manufacturer's specs. This is not so. When my Tele arrived, right out of the box, the bridge pickup did not work. After a couple hours of tinkering and wondering, I broke out the multimeter and tested the pickup. It was dead. Contacting Zzounds to get a replacement pickup just yielded a return authorization. I wouldn't have minded them just sending me a new pickup. Instead I wound up just using some of the money I saved to buy a stock replacement.

The Wow Factor
This is probably the best looking guitar I've owned. The photos on the web site don't really do it justice. Natural, vintage-looking, mahogany finish. Maple neck. Chrome hardware. Very very nice and I'd put it against any of my other guitars for looks.

Musical Background:
Been playing in gigging bands for 18 years

Musical Style:
I play mostly Rock and Blues read less