Harley Benton Fusion-T HH HT EB OCT

The guitar looks and feels great. I stumbled upon this guitar on youtube and immediately fell in love. It's what I was looking for: tele shaped guitar with alternative design decisions (mahogany body, simple 6 saddle fixed bridge, and the last but not the least - humbuckers). Gotta love stailess steel frets, Graptech TUSQ XL nut, ebony fingerboard and locking tuners.
I love the Tele I have but I wanted something more versatile and lighter (the ash body on my tele is as heavy as cast iron). I initially wanted a black one but they quickly went of stock and I ordered a sparkled green one while they lasted.
The quality of manufacturing is excellent, I haven't found any flaws or imperfections, so no complains whatsoever on that side. The color in reality is very eye pleasing and not too "poppy", which I was kind of apprehensive of. Wood "binding" looks neat too.
The neck with natural satin finish is very pleasant to touch and move hand around, the grip is very comfortable.
The hardware looks and feels solid. The volume knob makes some sound when turning like it's rubbing something but I can live with that.
I slightly more prefer regular size frets on my Tele to jumbo frets here but it's a matter of getting used to the instrument.
The guitar came well intonated with action a bit higher than I am used to but the adjustment took just a few minutes.
Speaking about tone, I'd say that I expected slightly thicker and darker tone from the Rosewell humbuckers after all youtube reviews I saw but not a big issue, it can be compensated later in the sound chain for the most part.
I didn't closely inspected the electronics, they work fine, no humming, buzzing or knobs screeching, so why bother.
All in all, it's my daily "go to" instrument now (I've got 4 guitars including this one).
The only cons I noticed by now is that it has a tendency to a very slight neck dive. The other minor nuisance is the positioning of the 3 way pickup selector. It's too close to the strings and I often bump into it with my hand. But these I can live with easily given all the joy it is to play. Anyways, I do it mostly at home now.
So, it's my first Harley Benton and most likely not the last one :).
BTW, the delivery was quite fast (I was afraid that there would be issues given the situation with the pandemic now). The only thing that I was looking for in the box but it was missing was the sticker "Rescue my guitars first". No big deal.
Keep good work up Thomann!
Thanks!

I thought for a long time about buying a Harley Benton, I should've just pushed the button earlier. But this guitar with locking tuners, looks amazing, plays brilliantly straight out the box. I've now spent some time with it setting it up and putting lighter strings on. It is superb.
If there was one thing that could be improved on its the pick ups, but then again I'm comparing with my gibson les paul which cost a few times more dosh.
If you are considering buying but are worried about the quality, dont be, just buy it.
I have bought 3 harley bentons now, this one and 2 basses. My mate having tried this guitar out has also bought 2 and is trying to justify a third to his Mrs.

I'm very impressed with my new Fusion-T Hardtail. I can probably come up with some minor cons but this is a great "midrange" guitar (normally guitars in the £500 to £1000 price range to my mind) for an excellent price.

Pro
Finish - impeccable, can't find anything substandard
Tuners - the best I've ever used - and locking
Nut - well-cut, no tuning problems
Frets - perfect, no buzzes, smooth ends and actually so high it feels like a scalloped neck to play
Neck Joint - perfectly tight, perfectly finished
Neck Profile - a little deeper than what I would call "Modern C" but I love it.
Neck Finish - nice satin feel
Controls - better placing than in the pictures and the switch is at an angle, as it should be, ideally
Pickups - very good and of a Vintage tone, great for low gain. Very low noise even in single coil mode, great for high gain.
Bridge - just as it should be and gives excellent sustain

Cons
Bridge Pickup could be a bit hotter
Tone Pot could have a little more torque resistance to match the volume
I hope the wood is properly seasoned

That's it. Amazing

After 8 months:

Still a great guitar. Wood was seasoned well, perfectly stable. This is second only (just) to my Gordon Smith, which cost over 3 times as much

What can I say that hasn't been said? It is not a good guitar for the price, it is a good guitar, full stop. I like it much more than my Gibson Les Paul Studio in regards of finish and feeling and it is on par with other expensive guitars. I love the stainless steel frets, fretjob is very very good. First time I have an ebony fretboard, it is awesome, it is my favorite now, like it much better that the rosewood in my les paul. Maybe in the future will change the neck pickup for a P90 humbucker size, but honestly, those work quite good for my taste. Kind of low gain, but I liker them in high gain as you can have more dynamics, they sound good for any style (again, for my taste). Definitely worth the money, do not think about it.

Apsolutely amazing !
Out of the box guitar needs restring, truss rod and intonation setting which is normal. Quality of made is perfect, nothing less then other expensive guitars I own. No sharp edges, fret work is excellent (who wants, can do extra frets polishing), WSC locking tuners works great, saddles as well. Neck finish is clear satin which suites me the best. Graptech TUSQ XL nut is excellent. Rosewell pickups do the great job especially bridge. Only minor minus is knob with no screw which gives possibility of pulling off from push-pull pot wile doing a split coil pickups thing. Overall impression is ... high-class guitar !

This is my first HB guitar and I'm amazed by the excellent fretwork and the overall quality, especially considering the price. After a setup and a pickup replacement, it is now one of my favorites.

PROS
-- Amazing fretwork: neck is straight and even, trussrod works well and there's no fret buz even with silly low action.
-- Very thick and "juicy" ebony fretboard
-- Flawless body and headstock finish
-- Satin finish of the neck - feels almost like bare wood
-- Locking tuners work well and tuning stability is great
-- Good acoustic sound: highs are mellow, just a right amount of low end and the mids are even, all of which which can be expected from the maple neck with sapele body combo. Doesn't quite have the low mid push and warmth of a honduran mahogany Les Paul though.
-- Pots and pickup switch are well placed and do not get in the way of my right hand. My guitar is from a new batch where HB fixed the switch problem some were complaining about- it's at an angle now - not as in the posted here pictures.

CONS
-- My guitar came with very high nut action, and filing ithe nut was actually not an easy job.
-- Does not come with a good setup - you have to spend time to DIY or take it to a luthier, but that is the case with 99% of instruments under 1000 euro, but hey, this one is only 300.
-- Bridge pickup is awfull.

Overall a great guitar

To preface: I've never owned a crazy expensive guitar, and this probably is the most I've spent on one but I've touched more expensive guitars and this definitely feels like it's worth more than its price. Staggered locking tuners are a game-changer; string changes are a breeze. It's so fun to play that I'm always picking it up and noodling. I've never had a guitar that I wanted to play as much as this one and that's the best review I can give it. The balance is a little of but I rarely play stood up, and the split coil knob feels looser than the volume knob but they're tiny niggles for an otherwise great instrument!

I haven't played the electric guitar for 20 years and meeting again the rock classics and really becoming a fan of Van Halen made me decide to take up the electric guitar again.
I was looking for the best price / quality in a product and this guitar (in my opinion) is unbeatable. Very well packaged and arrived without any problems, it was almost perfectly in tune! And the humbucker, is the first time I play a guitar with Humbuckers pick up and this guitar delivery that overdrive tones from the 80's and cleans that you can perfect play some blues or even jazz. I didn't try to play with the push/pull function for single-coil/humbuckers yet, but until now, is much more than I deserve being a amateur player.
If you have the money, I highly recommend this model.

Initially I was eyeballing a few more expensive telecasters but when I saw this I honestly fell in love with the look of it. I've never had a Harley Benton product before but the reviews seemed pretty decent so I took the gamble.

I also loved that it has humbuckers (with a tone-knob you can pull out to make it single coil).

Straight out of the box the guitar was in pretty decent shape though the box itself was damaged a bit (I'm sure this was not Thomann's fault).

After playing for a bit I decided to just use the strings that came with it for a while as honestly I'm not proficient enough to really know whether I SHOULD change them.
The fret-board feels smooth, straight, and the action was perfect for me so there were no adjustments needed.

After a few months the pickup selector start producing a lot of noise and I could no longer reliably select the neck pickup. I knew this sort of problem may arise with a budget guitar but I was(and am) still in love with it so instead of returning it I decided to replace the faulty part.
I replaced the faulty pickup switch with the Göldo US003 CRL 3-Way Switch which was incredibly easy to do.
The new pickup switch feels a LOT better, you can tell the difference in quality there. There's little to no slack on the switch, it just feels a lot more solid.

TL;DR
I would definitely recommend this guitar if you're on a tighter budget or honestly, just love the look of it like I did. Beware that some issues may come up and honestly, I would recommend investing the extra 30-something euros to replace the 3-way switch right away.