Well, I'll cut straight to the point. It's a great guitar, and to be honest I don't think that surprises anyone anymore. Squier has well proven that they can build fully serviceable instruments for peanuts, and this one, being I think the second cheapest line they offer, is no exception. It stays in tune, it sustains well, it sounds good both acoustic and plugged in, the neck is nice with no sharp fret ends, it came with a shim pre-installed so someone obviously had time to pay it some attention despite the cheapness. The finish is nearly flawless and you can set the action low without any rattling or buzzing. It's also pretty inspiring, and I find myself noodling around on it with a bit more gusto and inspiration than I ordinarily have for just, well, noodling.
Still there's something about it that puts me off a little bit, and it's hard to say just what it is. I think part of it is that it doesn't lend itself well to being modded to a more vintage correct setup with a three-saddle bridge and all that. The bridge has three mounting screws under the saddles instead of the more traditional four, making a direct swap impossible without at least drilling and preferably also doweling. It's also top loader only and the body is thinner than your standard Tele, although the latter one doesn't really bother me. The neck heel extends almost to the 14th fret and that just has me wondering why. Is it cheaper to make them like that, or if the wood isn't considered good enough to be sturdy without that bit of extra support. The bridge pickup is great and really gets me that thing which I assume is what everyone loves about Tele bridge pickups, but the neck pickup feels like they kinda phoned it in.
(It does, however, come factory routed for a neck humbucker)
Now I know that for 200€ what I've gotten is still a terrific guitar, and certainly it has something really terrific to it, be it the Tele concept itself (which this is pretty much my first experience with) or just that all the parts here come together into a well-playing, well-sounding guitar. Absiolute bang for the buck all around, and for days.
But I feel like this one might get passed on in a not too distant future simply because for some reason I fail to make the connection with it. Maybe it's phenomenological, the satin neck and the lightness and all the not-quite-right details making it feel a little bit off or airy compared to my other guitars. It's fun to play, but somehow falls short of feeling like a real, accomplished instrument, though without a doubt you could use it as one. Like I'd confidently take it to gigs, but I'd rather not have to, if that makes any sense.
All in all I don't regret getting it, because it was meant mostly as an experiment, dipping my toes into the Tele pool, and for anyone specifically wanting a cheap, fun and close-enough Tele, I can highly recommend this. I hope when I sell it on it becomes someone's first guitar because I would have loved for it to be mine. But now that I have a couple of nice ones already, I feel like this would always be the odd one out among them and that if (let's be honest, when) I get more guitars they need to be more, uh, special, have more substance or at least feel more right. I'd have concluded that maybe my nicer guitars have spoilt me or set some kind of standard cheap guitars just can't live up to anymore, but I'll do another NGD-post in a couple of days about something that was even cheaper and still caught my fancy, so maybe that isn't it either
So, TL;DR, great guitar for what it is but not for me really. But if a cheap, beater Tele is just what you want, buy with confidence.