I bought this Monoprice Indio Dark Blue HSS guitar for about $80 new to see what modern manufacturing techniques could produce, thinking that I could return it if it really sucked. It actually turned out to be surprisingly well-constructed and playable with some adjustments and setup. This guitar was originally intended to be a project guitar for practicing my evolving lutherie skills and to be a “beater” for casual playing. Surprisingly, I find myself picking it up and playing it more frequently than some of my expensive axes.The 6 screw trem bridge is a nod to the original Fender Strat, and can be tweaked and lubricated to stay in tune nicely; it has been replaced by a replacement Guyker bridge due to the original screw-in trem arm breaking off at the threaded tip. I think that was due to my rough and many experiments with using small springs to stabilize the arm while playing - probably it would have been fine if I left this more alone. The Guyker has a push-in arm with a small tightening bolt - a big improvement, along with quality parts such as a much heavier trem block and a better claw and springs.The tuners are decent and seem to hold proper tuning; locking tuners are on my list of future upgrades though not needed right now, especially with proper string installation. I’ve gotten lazy with my other guitars having locking tuners and/or locking nuts. Fretwork was surprisingly good, and was made better with light use of a sanding block on a few rough fret edges. Thankfully, the manufacturers didn’t blindly follow old vintage dogma (e.g. 21 narrow frets, truss rod adjustment requiring neck removal) - this guitar has 22 medium jumbo frets with truss adjustment available at the headstock.I also ended up installing a loaded Colaxi pickguard with HHH (rail style HBs for middle and neck, full-sized HB for bridge); each HB can be individually coil-split. I figured I’ve added about $45 of upgrades in keeping with the original intent of spending as little as possible. For myself, it would make no sense to spend more than the guitar cost on additional parts. I would say that if this guitar were available back in the 50s, it would be better than the Strats available then. Of course, it doesn’t have the brand clout that some would like. Personally, I’m more into what a product offers as far as features and quality, and this Indio really delivers at this price point, even punching above it.* As an additional bonus, the guitar came with a decent padded gig bag that has backpack type straps as well, much better than some of the very thin unpadded plastic or nylon ones. It's not at all up to the same top quality standards as a Kiesel gig bag, but gets decently close enough at this price point - I wouldn't try throwing it off the roof loaded to test it.