The guitar was supposed to arrive tuned and ready to play.
However, the intonation was way off and there is a very pronounced fret buzzing on the low E string, the bridge height or truss rod seems not able to fix.

The body of this guitar feels right on par with anything from fender.. Mexican, Japanese or American. The fit and finish is beautiful for a $499 guitar never mind $169 on Black Friday. This indeed does have alnico pickups not ceramic as some may state. The neck reminds me of a PRS custom 22 or 24. Very wide and thin where it meets the body. The playability is fantastic. The Wilkinson trem is a real Wilkinson and holds tune nicely. There is not better electric guitar on the planet dollar for dollar. At $229 this is a STEAL! My monoprice 15 watt tube amp is also the best amp dollar for dollar in existence. Very happy with my purchase.

While I have some criticisms, overall I'm very happy with this guitar.

PROS & CONS
+ Beautiful finish on the body, appears to be 2-piece ash.
+ Impressive tiger striping on the back of the neck w/ super smooth satin finish.
+ my guitar came with the new Indio logo. (Sorry to the person who got the old logo. I'd be a little disappointed too!)
+/- I'm not a botanist but I'm not convinced it's a rosewood fingerboard, looks more like ebony to me based on colour and grain patters.
- fretboard arrived SUPER dry, but an easy fix with the appropriate conditioning oil.
- Several small pock marks in the fretboard but don't impact playability. Purely a cosmetic issue
- That nut... yikes. The nut wasn't cut properly and was pinching the strings causing major tuning issues. I'm going to replace it with a TUSQ nut but it was barely even playable without a quick filing.
+/- my setup was passable. Action was super low, but major fretbuzz, partly due to...
- frets not level. I had to spot level about half a dozen places, but I should probably have just done a new level.
- Strings were rusty. Like they dipped them in the ocean and left them on the beach for a month before putting them on. I know the first thing you gotta do is swap the strings, but this was just funny. Except that it left a few rust spots on the frets which required a bit of work.
+ Alpha pots move and work quite well
+/- 5-way import style pcb switch, moves OK but I may replace with something a bit nicer
+ pickups are OK (bridge sounds great, neck sounds a little bland, may replace eventually) and not quite as hot as advertised - 6.2 (bidge) / 6.0 (middle)/5.6 (neck) which doesn't bother me but I can confirm they are indeed AlNiCo (NOT ceramic).
+ RWRP middle pickup for hum cancelling in positions 2 & 4 but other positions are not very noisy at all
+ cloth covered pickup wiring was nice to see and soldering was well done
+ swimming pool rout with room for humbucker upgrades if desired (though pickup cavity is not shielded)
+ pickguard looks like better quality than others I've seen
- machine heads/tuners are not great and should probably be replaced.
+ Wilkinson VS 50 II K bridge & vibrato is pretty nice.
+/- gig bag is surprisingly well padded but the zipper is about as cheap as they come and is frustrating to open/close. But it's a gig bag!

Some mixed feelings about this since it took a bit of work to get this even to tune properly, but my plan was always to upgrade this guitar. Slap a new set of tuners on there along with a properly cut nut and this guitar is quickly going to become a favourite.

If this is your first guitar or you're not into DIY setups, take this guitar in for a proper setup and you'll feel like you're playing something worth MUCH more than you paid for it.

For $169 on sale this guitar is a fantastic buy.

I've been playing guitar for over 25 years. When I started in the mid-90s, a $169 guitar was absolute garbage. These days it's quite astounding what that much will buy you!

This feels and plays like a much more expensive instrument, on par with at least Squier Vintage models if not the Mexican line as well.

Fit and finish overall is great. Pickups are surprisingly nice sounding and the Wilkinson trem is solid.

Considering it also comes with a pretty decent gig-bag, I'd say it's a win-win for anyone looking to start playing guitar, or to just add a Strat style guitar to your collection.

I really like the feel of this guitar. It plays way better than the price point might suggest. I knocked one star off for two reasons. The first reason is the guitar I received has the ugly paintbrush style logo, not the more sleek one pictured in the photo. And honestly, as silly as it sounds, I got the cherry burst instead of the natural ash, because it had the cooler looking logo. Second, the neck sits inside the body about 1mm. Not a biggy, but it kind of bugs me.

Nice guitar. Arrived set up very well. Sounds good.

I ordered this guitar after seeing good reviews of Indio guitars on YouTube. I am NOT disappointed! Years ago I had a Fender American Deluxe Strat which I parted with and current financial uncertainties had me shopping around and I decided on this guitar to go with my new Fender Mustang GT 100 amp. I am very glad I bought this guitar. It looked GREAT out of the box, no blemishes of any kind, The neck is really good and easy to play, string height was set well and the intonation was also on target. The d'Addario strings were excellent (still are). The only negative is the tuners don't hold pitch as well as I'd like, but this is a minor problem. I can't say enough good about his guitar for the price of $230. It's really amazing and I am having a lot of fun getting great sounds out of it and the amp. Keeping social distanced now isn't so bad - it includes the enjoyment I am getting out of playing this instrument. Thank you for an affordable, great-looking and great-playing instrument.

It was packed inside a thin foam bag that extended the full length, a small foam block was over the switch lever, and the bagged guitar was inside a relatively thin but padded gig bag. That was inside a cardboard box. It made it just fine. First look, I was impressed with the finish quality and the wood grain is very nice (ash body on this one). The fret ends are nicely finished. I have not checked the frets for leveling but they appear to be pretty good. The fret surface is matt, but that will wear smooth with a little bit of playing. It came with D'Addario strings. Strings are pretty light, may be 9s. The string trees on the headstock will be replaced by me. The strings do not slide under those trees very well when tuning. That's an easy replacement and inexpensive. After tuning, I plugged it in my amp. Played it a little and decided it needed some setup (fret buzz). I adjusted the truss rod slightly to get a small gap at fret 9 when holding the string down at 1 and 22. I set the bridge height to get the action I wanted, adjusted pickups for height (they were a little too close to the strings), and set intonation (that was close on some strings). After that, it sounded much better. For the price paid, I am very satisfied. Don't let the setup scare you off. Youtube has setup videos. Anyone can probably do it. I would give this five stars if the setup had been better and those string trees had been better.. Another positive; the tremelo was already properly set up. Bottom line, I am very pleased and I plan to keep it a long time.

Nice guitar for the price!

I have only had the guitar for about a week so these are my initial thoughts and impression.

The Basics: Two piece solid ash body, maple neck, rosewood fret board. Came with a padded gig bag and adjustment wrenches. Weighs a bit over 8 pounds, but it's not boat anchor weight by any stretch of the imagination. The guitar feels solid and has a very resonant body.

Workmanship: Outstanding fit and finish ! ! ! The neck has a satin finish, the rosewood fret board looks like a really nice piece of wood. Finish on the guitar is perfect. The frets are dressed nicely with no fret sprout or rough edges.

Hardware: Has a really nice (and very adjustable) Tremolo style Wilkinson bridge. Not sure what company made the tuners - they are non-locking - but at first blush they seem to stay in tune fairly well. Ceramic pickups. Knobs were a little stiff at first; but they seemed to loosen up after awhile. Cream colored three ply pickguard, knobs, and back plate. I think the cream color compliments the finish very well.

Playability and sound: Has a flatter radius neck compared to Fender Strats. I'm going to guess it's close to 12 inches. The frets are narrow and not very tall. It took some getting used to the neck but after playing it a few times it started growing on me, The neck is very playable.

The pickups sound OK. I compared them to an 80's MIJ
Squier Strat that I have. They seemed not quite as bright. I think the Ash body makes for a little darker tone though.

Bottom Line: It is a fantastic value and worth every penny.