Harley Benton R-446 Plum Metallic

Just received mine this morning and I'm blown away. First of all, looking at the photos on the site there's a couple worrying things. 1. There's visible glue along the neck under the binding and 2. The "veneer" on the headstock isn't flush to the wood close to the nut. Much to my surprise the finish on mine is flawless.

Pros
- The paint finish is flawless and the colour is great!
- The neck has a lovely satin finish and feels great to play.
- The switch and pots feel good and solid but there's a but further down.
- Tuners are solid and seem to hold tune well.
- Have yet to test pickups but I'll be swapping them out anyway.

Cons
- Expected this but the nut isn't great. As they state it is plastic but mine also isn't cut correctly and over hangs the side of the neck and lines the top E too close to the edge because of this. Easy enough to fit a better nut though so not to bothered.
- Frets are good but a couple of sharp edges but nothing a little file and polish work wont fix.
- As mentioned the pots feel solid but having opened it they are cheap mini pots (Expected of course) so worth upgrading.

Bare in mind this guitar is 126 pound and it definitely punches above that price but it is still 126.

Great beginner guitar and a great modding platform.

(Now take everything I say with a grain of salt as I am a beginner and dont know too much)
From what i can tell, the quality of the guitar is near immaculate. The finish on the guitar particularly on the body and head is great.

However I've had one issue with it, the first few frets are very hard to play as they are very tight which I am pretty certain is due to the nut being too high/not cut deep enough. And especially being a beginner, this makes learning to play chords and such very difficult to do as it's actually quite painful. All the other frets are fine to play however. But over looking this, I am very pleased with this purchase especially for the price.

You can not get anything better for the money! If you can afford it, you can buy two or three different-colored ones or try the more expensive models, such as the Fusion 3.
I personally like the playability of the fretboard, I have also the fusion and the progressive series. OK the fusion is a better guitar overall which is anyway logical. But if you have a kid who just starts guitar, or you want to have a few more guitars in your rig, or when you play live, this is a risk free investment. And if you want you can upgrade it.
For a beginner or an intermediate guitarist, this is an excellent choice, if you play metal or rock (mainly).