LyxPro 39” Electric Guitar Left Hand TL Series, Full-Size Paulownia Wood Body, 3-Ply Pickguard, C-Shape Neck, Ashtray Bridge, Quality Gear Tuners, 3-Way Switch & Volume/Tone Controls, 2 Picks, Natural

This is my first telecaster shaped object. I've played a couple Tele's at various guitar shops so I sorta knew what to expect. Let's go through this guitar, shall we?-First off, this is a telecaster copy from China. It's not a real tele, and doesn't measure as a real tele. For instance, the neck pocket won't allow a Warmoth or Fender tele neck. The sizes and screw hole placement are all different.-Fit and finish: Overall for $110 tele, it's really nice. The maple neck and fretboard were flawless. Frets were a bit gritty but smooth on the edges. A couple quick passes with 1000 grit fret eraser made the frets smooth as glass. The body is a Natural look, so I was able to see that this is a 3 piece body made of Paulownia wood which is really lightweight but easily dented. The woodgrain really shines through in mine but I've seen some really dark spots in others. The sanding job is a bit off in spots around the edges of the body, but at this price point I'm not worried about it. If you look really hard in just the right light, you can see some of the crosshatch sanding marks, but again at this price point I'm not worried. Neck plate screws were well tightened and the neck to body fit is good. No shims needed at this point.-Electronics/Pickups- Right off the bat these are ceramic pickups (single coil bridge, single coil lipstick neck) so don't expect alot of punch. Pots are dime sized and a just a bit gritty. Some contact cleaner will hopefully clear that up. Switch is a bit clunky but works. I would recommend alnico pickups and better pots/caps. Pickguard is a three layer which looks great, but where it was cut at the neck joint and the bridge is chattered and will need some light sanding to smooth out the rough edges of the cut.-Strings: Strings that came with it were 9's and are garbage. Basically they just are there to keep some tension on the neck. They were slightly detuned and the neck set arrow straight. I tuned it up, and gave the neck the proper relief. I let it sit for 24 hours at pitch then rechecked. Only a eighth of a turn to get 12 thou of relief. Action is a mile high at 6/64s so that's gotta come down. The bridge is a top loader and not a string-through, no biggie. Three piece saddle set up so it's easy to set action and intonation.-Packing and other items: Packing was crap. Basically the guitar was wrapped in the usual thin foam shroud, and put into a guitar box with minimal styrofoam blocks. No gig bag, no extra padding, nothing. That box was then put into a HUGE Amazon box with a couple pieces of brown paper that kinda floated around the box. No additional padding or anything from Amazon. Thankfully, it survived the trip from NJ to CO intact and with no issues. Accesssories included two allen wrenches; one for the truss rod, one for the saddles. Also came with two unmarked picks which go in the spare pick jar.-OVERALL: For $110US this is a tele shaped object and should be regarded as such. Out of the box it will need some love and adjustments. At this price point, the finish and workmanship is good and from 10 feet away looks like a million bucks. Some better electronics and pickups would definitely make this tele get up and holler, but for playing in my apartment, it's fine for the time being. For what I got at $110 bucks, you can't go wrong.-UPDATE: I restrung the Chinacaster (its new name) with Ernie Ball Super Slinky 9's. That made a HUGE difference in tone and overall performance. Truss rod adjustments are still holding really well at .012". I like my string action low at 4/64s so this caused the saddles to be slammed to the deck and the grub screws that adjust saddle height to stick out and grab at my picking hand. I'll need to add a hardwood veneer shim under the neck to bring this angle up bit so the saddles aren't so low.The nut is an issue. It's cheap white plastic that wasn't cut very well and needs to be replaced. It's causing some string buzz on the D string, at least I think it is. It might be the string trees or maybe even the D/G saddle. More investigation is needed, but that plastic nut has to go regardless. My nut measures 42mm x 3mm x 5.6mm. I have a lefty bone nut ordered.The overall sound with new strings and setup is decent. I wouldn't rave about it, but it's fine for bedroom or extremely small bars or venues. It definitely needs better electronics and pickups. The tone pot has no real taper and can be easily described as all or nothing when it comes to tone. Volume pot is similar, but not as bad and has some taper.For $110 US it's a great base to make a killer tele.

I just bought a new Lyxpro Telecaster and a few months back I bought a Donner Telecaster and a Monoprice Telecaster so a little comparison here.The Donner costs a bit more but it comes with a nice gig bag.The Monoprice was the cheapest of the lot and comes with a much inferior gig bag than the Donner. Really more of a dust cover than a gig bag. The Lyxpro does not come with any gig bag so after buying a gig bag the price is the same as the Donner. The Donner is the heaviest of the three and feels a bit more robust. The Monoprice is the next heaviest and the Lyxpro is a lighter more comfortable weight than either of the above. The nuts on all of these are cheap garbage. You will want to put a good nut of your choice in for the duration. The hardware is virtually the same on both the Lyxpro and the Donner. The Monoprice tuners are cheaper but work. The Monoprice also has a better bridge than the Donner and Lynxpro as it is six saddle adjustable. On both the Donner and the Lynxpro I ended up installing compensating brass saddles to get those guitars intonated correctly. The saddles that come with the Donner and the Lyxpro are Telecaster accurate but that means never having perfect intonation. Something those type of saddles are known for. I actually like the sound of the Lyxpro pickups and found they have some balls and are Tele like whereas the Donner pickups I ended up switching out for some Toneriders. I will be leaving the Lyxpro pickups in for now. The Monoprice Tele pickups are less than Tele sounding than the Lyxpro. A more sedated almost Tele sound. I like the headstock of the Donner much better than the Monoprice or Lyxpro. It looks more professional than the obnoxious overly huge black logos on the Lyxpro or the Monoprice. The shape of the Donner headstock is less offensive to me also. The Lyxpro pays no homage at all to a Telecaster headstock and doesn’t even try and the Monoprice headstock is just a bit odd for me.Best neck out of the box was the Lyxpro and the fact that it has a Maple fretboard was a plus for me. It is also a bit thinner neck than the Monoprice or the Donner and is definitely the best playing neck of the lot. On both the Donner and Monoprice I had to do a fret level and recrown along with filing fret ends. The Lyxpro was great out of the box and I like that the neck has rounded edges. A very comfortable neck to play with no buzz whatsoever under spec settings. The Donner and Monoprice play fine BUT I had to work at it to finally get them right. Fit and finish: The Monoprice was spotless however what they call blonde is really an egg custard color. I am still trying to get used to that color. The Donner I bought was 3TS. Paint is beautiful but if you look at the guitar from the back you can see almost every seam from where they pieced the body together. The Monoprice did a better of that with no seams visible under the paint on mine. The Lyxpro is a natural guitar so there is no hiding how many pieces they used in it’s construction. There is no care at all in trying to match any grain on the pieces they use so you get what you get there. Overall finish was glossy and had some places where it has orange peeled though it isn‘t noticeable until very close up. If I had to recommend one of these it would be the Lyxpro simply because out of the box it was ready to go and sounds the most like a Tele so unless you can do your own work this one came setup the best. Oh, I bought a Donner gig bag to go with the Lyxpro. It fit fine and it is one of the better and more reasonable gig bags there is on Amazon. This company doesn't ship quickly. It took them 3 days just to get it out the door. When it did get to the local Amazon they passed shipment off to USPS which always means yet another delay so don't expect to get this by the promised date.