Harley Benton TE-62CC IS

When I received the Harley Benton TE-62CC IS, the first thing that struck me was how perfect the neck is. Zero fret sprouting perfectly smooth and flush. The satin finish is a joy to use. The colour is profound and so vintage looking. the fit of the neck to the body is perfect as well. The metal knobs are excellent and have excellent resitance. I am sure that the strings on my guitar are 09-42's and NOT 10-46's which I prefer. they are D'Addario strings. The tuners are excellent. My low E string tuner was just slightly out of line with the rest which I rectifies a bit, so it is a more aligned now. The pickups sound totally Telecaster like. The pick-guard is NOT three ply as they state in their description. It is a single ply white which is truer to the vintage 50's look. I have ordered a mint green three ply pick-guard and will see if it works. Not sure if it will but could be nice. My only critique is that the three way switch although very solid switching between the pickups, but laterally there is some give and feels a bit troubling. But they do click solidly between each setting. So, not a big deal. I saw another review on YouTube and they mentioned it as well. So I think it is the nature of the switch used. All and all and incredible guitar, that if you stuck a Fender Telecaster Made in Japan decal on the head stock it would pass with no problem. At 3x the cost, it would still be reasonable.

Positive points
- Roswell pickups are usually good and they do their job here; if you roll off some highs, it sounds like a tele.
- Neck profile is comfortable to play.
- Guitar is not too heavy.

Subjective thoughts
- Inca silver colour is not close to the original. It could have been called Coca silver or VW beige instead.
- Satin neck finish is a bit rough and would benefit from polishing; though it's better than a gloss finish.
- A black pickguard would be more elegant than this piece of white plastic but as the dimensions are not standard, I'll have to live with this.

Negative points
- Slots in the fingerboard are cut 3 times deeper than necessary for inserting the frets. The fretboard is almost cut in several pieces of wood. The slots have then been filled with a whitish wood paste which ruins the aesthetics of the roasted neck.
- After 3 months, frets ends are becoming a little sharp, although a roasted neck should be less sensible to weather change, which is clearly not the case here.
- On the body's back, in line with the screws holding the neck, there is a 10 cm long "wave" under the finish. Bad sanding, bad gluing of 2 pieces of wood, unseasoned wood? I don't know, I just hope it is not a crack.
- Square jack plate is screwed at an angle with the body. A correct placement would have required a little more attention, about 5 seconds. I can not correct it due to the existing holes.
- Jack was loosen; not a big deal but should not happen fresh from factory and after control quality.
- As noted by other customers the switch wobbles laterally. Crappy part. Has to be replaced with something better.
- Curiously, pickups hum is not cancelled in the mid position. Electronics to be checked.
- Some frets are roughly crowned and need polishing.
- Like other low cost instruments, the body is just an assembly of poplar, one of the cheapest woods on the market. As I have seen many more matches made out of poplar than violins, I am not totally confident in the long term.

Conclusion
This guitar is certainly playable.
But remember that building a correct instrument is easier now thanks to CNC machines and robots making a good part of the job.
Several parts are of low quality: switch; copper is exposed on the bridge plate; TEA Pickups are from Roswell but in a cheap version with plastic wires instead of the old fashioned clothed wires.

Most of all, the handworking is terrible on some points (was the guitar assembled by a kid or by a drunken worker? not both I hope).
Unfortunately some of the bad things can not be easily corrected or upgraded.
This might sound as a severe appreciation, but what could I say when a factory is not capable to fix 4 screws at the right place?

Update:
- When I took off the original strings, I noticed that the nut was broken near the A string. In need of a replacement.
- The neck was definitely not straight, with several bumps. It had to be carefully filed, sanded and refinished.
I can just confirm the poor workmanship of my exemplar.

This is an inexpensive Telecaster-like guitar that is able to render very well the spirit of the guitar-model it takes inspiration from.
I won't repeat here a list of the features/characteristics for which you're better off referring to the relevant product page. I will try to offer here instead a subjective opinion, a feeling, on the instrument.
Price-wise this guitar sits in the lower portion of the bunch, but the feeling you get while playing it and, more importantly, the sound you can obtain through this instrument are more at home in the medium / medium-high spectrum of available quality.
In general I find myself resorting more and more often to this guitar basically because despite being as basic as a telecaster can be it's still a lot of fun to play, mostly for the dynamic response you can get from the instrument but as well because its keyboard is precise and easy to use ..!
All in all I would consider this a good quality guitar even disregarding the price, but when you factor in the cost and compare what you get for what you spend it's definitely a crime not to bring this home.
Best of luck with this fun and inexpensive guitar!

Too Long; Didn't Read:
If you want a t style guitar why haven't you bought one of these? The value for the price is astronomical.

More details:

Less than a week delivered to the US. Packing was done well.
guitar acclimated for 48 hours prior to setup and tuning.

I love the neck. Smooth, no fret sprout, all the ends are smooth. Just feels great and it helps that the fretboard is gorgeous as well. Small gaps at body joint but no worse than I have seen on Squiers and player series Fender guitars.
The tuning machines are serviceable: not tight, no slippage, they have held tune extremely well.

The paint has just that hint of metal sparkle in it while not being too glittery and balances well with the caramel color of the neck and fingerboard. No nicks, scrapes or overspray.

The pickups are fine. They work are bright and not dark or dull.

Mine is heavy. ~8.5 kilos/10 lbs. A wide padded strap helps with it.
The base sustain and unplugged sound (if a guitar sounds dead unplugged I find it doesn't improve much when amplified,) is long and clear.

As is it is perfectly serviceable and usable. Action was a tad high but that is a personal preference.
I will eventually swap the pickups and tuning machines. But I am in no rush to do so. Even the strings were pretty decent, they got swapped for some Stringjoys but they weren't corroded and were pretty bright sounding.
So buy one, try it. It's a simple guitar both in construction and design but it works and it's good value for the money

The feel, finish, and sound of the guitar are great. It stays in tune pretty well, and the intonation is fine, even without compensated saddles. This is actually the second guitar I ordered. The first was lost or destroyed by UPS (it never arrived.) It took about seven business days to resolve, but Thomann reshipped my order. This guitar arrived with a large hole in the outer box, that penetrated the inner box of the guitar, leaving a centimeter diameter ding in the back of the guitar. One option Thomann offered was a more-than-fair partial refund to my PayPal account if I wished to keep the guitar as is. This is the option I chose, as the ding is relatively small and unobtrusive. I have been quite satisfied with both the guitar and the customer service from Thomann. However, if you are shipping a guitar to the U.S. via UPS, I would recommend purchasing a hard case and having it shipped in that. UPS is not kind.

I'm old enough to remember it being impossible to find a cheap guitar that was playable - so this is very welcome as a decent cheap spare stage guitar. Intonation and action were sorted out easily on this. I put a piezo bridge on and had a good look through the wiring. Switch, pots etc are all fine. The bridge pickup has a plate and there is a separate earth wire under the ashtray - so all good there. Fingerboard is a little narrow and neck a little thick for my liking - however they work with the 12" radius. I like the neck pickup but the bridge is weak - lacks the growl I want from a tele. I'll probably put a pair of tex mex on it

Be aware that this is not made from solid wood. It's some kind of MDF. I carve a forearm contour in my teles so in this case I had to paint - no big deal but be aware!