Harley Benton R-457MN WH MultiScale

I received this guitar over a week ago now … At first glance it looks the business, great paint job and no sharp fret ends. The neck has a nice smooth feel and not too thick either. When plugging it in into an amplifier is when I was faced with a few problems. 1. Horrendous 50 cycle hum ( although guitar is humbucker equipped) which rendered it almost unplayable 2. Impossibly high action … this was fairly easy to remedy as it was just a matter of using the Allen key provided to lower the bridge saddle grub screws.. 10 mins later I was happy with the action … However the extraneous noise was not going away … so rather than return the instrument I decided to open the back and have a look… what I found was very bad soldering, little to no shielding paint and no ground connection to 3 way switch or tone pot … so I grabbed a soldering iron and copper tape and went to work .. I shielded the entire cavity and grounded it all properly. No hum now and it sounds great ( although the pickups lack treble bite , which isn’t a major problem as you can just turn up the treble on pedals or amps you are using… ) I’d recommend this guitar but I’d also bear in mind that when you receive yours you may need to put some time into it to get it up to a decent playing standard. Also at £150 there are plenty of worse horror story guitars out there which cost twice the price. Happy shredding guys and girls 🙌👍🙌

Received it with a ding on a headstock. Everything else cosmetically was very good. Pickups are quite muddy, Definitely will change it in the future.
Fret ends are very smooth, but tops are rough. I can see tooling marks and inconsistencies in fret crowns. Bending is possible only in some places on a neck because of that, although, I think polishing frets will fix it.
Strings are highish, ill try to lower it down and hopefully there will be no fretbuzz.
Tuners are cheap, but holds tuning for a day.
I'd say, if you dont want to put any work in it, dont get it. But I will keep it, overall its cool guitar, it just needs some love :)

Playable and have been enjoying but not 100% on quality.

Bought this guitar to have a go at seven string. Happy with my purchase but some quite rough fretwork (feels rough when bending), sharp corner on the high e side of the nut which I have filed down as was uncomfortable playing F barre chords. Pickups quite noisy when not playing and sound quite muddy. Did arrive well set up and has a good quality finish. No problems with tuning stability which I though there might be for the money.

Have still been enjoying playing for the price, and would say for 100ish GBP still a very playable guitar for the money. However purchased a harley benton 5 string progressive bass at the same time which feels like it is punching above its weight for the same price. Feels like this could have been done a bit better.

Overall, the guitar is nice in terms of playability. The neck is comfortable and the fanfret (this is my first) is a great feature. But that's all.

The pickups are too muffy, even on neck position. I haven't played enough to check if tuners keep in tune. But for a guitar of this price, I was aware that the hardware would be bad.

Finishing is horrible. The paint is well done, but is messed up by micro scratches all over the guitar, especially the back. There are 3 BIG saw cuts near the last frets and scratches all over the freboard. There is also a hit at the back of the neck.

I bought a 5 strings bass of the same brand & price range 2 years ago, and the finishing is perfect, I don't know what happened with this guitar.

I returned the guitar 2 days after delivery. I would have kept it if there wasn't that much finishing issues. Poor hardware is common on guitars in this price range and it could be a nice base guitar for hardware upgrade.