Good upgrade platform

This guitar was mass-produced by Squier and only included on beginners' packs, making it a very common and cheap instrument on the second-hand market. There were two different productions of it, the early 2000s easily identifiable by the letters CAE at the beginning of the serial number (which was a sticker that tended to fall off), a neck skunk stripe and a simple white pickguard, and the latter late 2000s - early 2010s model, identifiable by the letters CXS at the beginning of the serial number (engraved on the back of the headstock), lack of a skunk stripe, satin-finished headstock face and either a pearloid or tortoise pickguard. Both runs were made in China and considered equal in quality, apart the visual differences. In either case, just don't even bother to pick the amp that came alongside them, a Squier SP10, perhaps one of the worst sounding and least reliable amps around.

The most notable aspect of these guitars is the fact that their dimensions are the same as of the regular Fender counterpart (43mm nut length, similar-feeling neck profile and the same body thickness), making it a much preferred option over the otherwise equivalent Affinity and Bullet segments. The body is made out of agathis, the neck is made out of maple (some models were granted beautiful flamed maple necks) with a rosewood fretboard. Hardware-wise, this guitar is certainly workable, with decent Squier-branded tuners and a generic 6 screw tremolo bridge, whose main problem is the thin, hollow block that can only hold 3 springs - given the body has the same thickness of a regular Fender Stratocaster, most metric 6 screw replacement bridges will fit, including the Fender Mexican Standard bridge. The electronics department is by far the worst part, with the ceramic pickups all having a resistance in the mark of 3k (I know, I've also found it weird when I've measured it) and scratchy out of the box mini pots. This guitar sounded notably thin and harsh, to me.

If you're willing to spend some money, this may be the most economical and promising Squier platform, if you find one for cheap. I've bought mine brand-new and have owned it for 6 years and it plays, sounds and feels great 150€ later. I've recently compared it against a friend's Fender Mexican Standard and, though I absolutely didn't expected that, I've preferred mine over it, having both an identical weight, the contours of the Squier perfectly matching up the Fender and I've even preferred the slightly thinner neck of the Squier - It only lost in the looks department, regarding the not so pretty neck finish and the seams of the multiple body pieces showing through the color.

An OK guitar

It's an ok guitar... The pickups are very thin and pretty noisy, even considering that they are single coil pickups. The tremolo bridge has really bad springs... They're so bad that when I restrung the guitar, the bridge moved as I tightened the strings. It's got a nice neck and the tuning machines aren't too bad. The volume pot is good but the tone pots are really bad, it's either the tone is at ten or it is at one when you are using them. Overall, it is a decent guitar, especially considering that it's only worth around 100 to 150 dollars.

Good mod project

They're pretty good build quality, they just have a meh nut, poor quality bridge, decent tuners and garbage electronics.