I've had this guitar for a few days now. I'll get the negative out of the way first:
1. I found some very minor imperfections in the finish although not in a very visible place since my arm covers it most of the time.
2. They could do a bit better with the stickers included
Now the positives:
First of all the whole purchase experience, from buying it online to the shipping and delivery were really smooth. I hadn't purchased from Thomann in a little while as I'm in the UK but I shouldn't have been concerned at all. The guitar arrived in less than a week, perfectly packaged.
Now the guitar itself. I'll preface this by saying I'm not a proffessional player. I'm a slightly below average bedroom guitarist. But like everyone, there are few things quite as nice as unboxing a new guitar and finding out the manufacturer cares about delivering quality regardless of the price point. The guitar came in a perfectly functional gig bag. When I first opened it, the action was a little bit high. Luckily I'd been watching YouTube so 1/4 of a turn of the truss rod later, the action is perfect. I would say that the additional relief in the neck was probably intentional for shipping because once I'd got the neck in position, the intonation was almost perfect (slightly high on the B string but spot on on the others). The finish on the guitar looks really good with the outer colour changing depending on the light and the black hardware gives it an amazing look.
The neck is beautiful, slightly bigger than my player strat with a nice satin finish. The guitar is not too heavy. I'd originally planned to replace the pickups but they sound really good to me, clear and articulate.
But the star of the show for me? The fret work. Simply impeccable, all level, they feel smooth when I bend. I've only ever had 1 guitar come out of the box with fretwork this good (a revstar which I regretfully no longer have)
It's no secret that for a lot of beginner players, to buy a guitar and then have to have additional work done to it to get it playable (and I don't mean just a set up) is daunting so to get a guitar like this where even at a lower price I don't feel like a cheap customer is really appreciated. This guitar is not "good for the price" it's just good and I'll definitely be checking out Mooer's other models as soon as they're back in stock (Msc-31 in green!!!) or I have the money to be a bit more adventurous with some of their other models.
Thank you Thomann and Thank you Mooer