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Originally Posted by Manic_Skafe
This is getting tedious.
If he buys a a cheap as shit guitar today, it will probably serve the purpose of learning how to play just fine. However, the sort of guitars that typically come along with starter packs are typically deemed to be below standard for what would be considered the average "serious" player.
If he does become one of those serious players then he'll have to replace everything that came along with the starter pack. And even if he goes for the more expensive guitar and decides that he's no longer playing, he can cash it in for much more than he'd get for anything in the starter pack.
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It's getting tedious because you're getting way too caught up on the cost of the gear.
My main electric is a Silvertone. I paid less than $200 for that instrument, but it's a great little guitar and it's a blast to jam on. I'm in good company, too; despite not being a top name, Silvertones were the first guitars of many professional musicians. Dave Grohl started on one. Beck uses one as his main ax today. In the late sixties Pete Townshed frequently used Silvertones because they were high enough quality for him to use in a gig and cheap enough that he could smash them when he was done with no qualms.
It's not a perfect instrument; it's a bit weak at the top of the fretboard and I'm considering swapping out the pickups. If I played punk I probably wouldn't need to, since it's got a huge bottom end, but alas as a blues player I need more in the twelfth fret range and above than I'm really getting. Even with that, though, it's still a great ax and should I choose to put new pickups into it I should have no problem doing so and keeping the overall expenditure on the instrument under $300.
Epiphone is also a budget line, yet the Sheraton haunts my dreams, I want one so bad. John Lennon's main guitar for years was an Epiphone Casino, which was marketed as an 'entry level' guitar.
Squiers are not the same as Fender Americans. For anyone who intends to go pro a Squier probably wouldn't cut it. Hell, for that matter, neither would my ax, were I to decide to pursue my music as a career choice; at that point, I'd probably have to get something higher quality. While I'm just doing it as a hobby, however, it works just fine. In fact, I know very few people who have Fender, Gibson or Ibanez guitars; most of the guys I jam with are using budget line ax's and having taken a turn on a few of them myself I can confidently assert that there's no reason for someone who just wants a guitar to jam on in their spare time to invest large amounts of money into a brand name instrument. Further to that, a beginning guitarist who doesn't really know what to look for in an instrument is probably best off going with something like that. Once he gets a better idea of what he'll want out of the instrument if his starter doesn't cut it he can look into upgrading.
I've said it before and I will say it again; there is a huge difference between a cheap guitar and a crappy guitar. The instrument doesn't have to have a thousand dollar price tag to be high quality.