Harley Benton Fusion-III HH HT Roasted SPP

After trying a b-stock Harley Benton just to check out the brand, I was so impressed, I started looking for one of their higher end guitars. The day the Fusion III came out, I snatched one up. I've been looking for a roasted maple neck for 2 years, but the prices have really gone up. The prices for the HB roasted maple necks make them almost impossible to pass up. I really do love the "sparkle pink" color. It's more on the purple side - which is a plus. And, I love that it's sparkle pink on the front, then the binding, then an antique red for the back. It's beautiful.
Every inch of this guitar makes it worth more than the actual price. The neck is the first thing that impressed me. It's very comfortable. There are 2 frets with fret sprout, but that's easy to fix.
I love getting a guitar that already has locking tuners. I usually put them on my guitars, but don't have to with this one. And, there aren't any issue with it staying in tune. Graphtech nut - can't complain.
The Roswell pickups are decent enough, but I'm a fan of Dimarzio, so chances are the pickups will be replaced. And, I guess I'm a traditionalist, but I don't really care for coil split. I have my single coil guitars for a reason.
The volume and tone pots are perfect. The volume tapers very well and the tone pot works perfectly. I have 2 other Harley Benton guitars and I have to replace the volume on those because they don't taper well. But the volume on the Fusion III is perfect!
For the price, you really can't go wrong. I own several guitars that were over $1000 ea, and I love them. But, after buying the Fusion III and a b-stock SC-550 II, I won't ever buy another guitar in the $1000+ range as long as Harley Benton keeps putting out this kind of quality. I've even gotten my friends interested in checking them out.

So to start out with this guitar is high quality, its well built. The edges of the neck feel smooth. The finish of the neck is very matte, almost to the point of feeling rough, but in a pleasant way. I would describe it as velvety.
The pickups installed are pretty good, maybe a little thin, but good enough I wouldn't bother going thru the effort of changing them.
I would recommend, and with any guitar, making sure the setup is done before judging tone, but it did play pretty well out of the box and didnt need much done to it to really make it sing.
I could get a lot of different voices out of it too, the chrome hardware looks sharp.
One small complaint that I see Thomann has already taken steps to address but when I bought this during the sale all of the photos made the guitar look much more purple than it is, and it looks like a lot of the images have been replaced which I'm happy about, but you can still see the original in the blurb about the guitar. So for anyone looking at the images and wondering about which is the real color, I will tell you.
This thing is PINK. Pinker than a pig at a pageant, I'm talking Barbie doll dreamhouse pink.
At first I was bit disappointed, and I looked at a refund only to realize the return shipping from this part of the states would be astronomical, not worth the refund money. But, it so happens the Barbie movie came out the very next day, so now everyone is taking it like its a pro feminist look how secure this guy is in himself kinda thing, which the girls love, and works out great for my artistic image. So I'm just saying I knew all along😉 .