Having only a Les Paul electric, I was looking to add a strat style guitar to the arsenal since I do love the strat tone. I often use guitars in the studio when producing R&B, pop, and hip hop beats, and that's pretty much it - I'm not by any means a great player, and I probably lack some experience with different guitars to make a great review, so take that into concideration when reading this.
That said, I love this guitar, and I find it very easy to play. The neck is pretty thick and really smooth, and I had no sharp frets at all. It feels great.
The pickups sound great, are not very noisy, and give some very useable strat tones, imo.
The guitar was pretty well set up when I got it, but I lowered the action slightly, and fine tuned the intonation to make it perfect.
Using the whammy bar destroys the tuning though, so I added locking tuners which improved things a bit. It is fine when doing a little vibrato effect, but still not enough if used more heavy handed. Probably some further modding is needed for this to be perfect.
The finish surprised me a bit. The current photos look right, but I'm pretty sure Thomann changed them at some point, as I recall that the finish was way more "silver" than greenish when I ordered it. The color is OK, but I can't say I love it. That said, no flaws, dings or anything - it came in great shape.
For the price, I can't see how this can be beaten. For that reason, I think it's a great starter guitar, which you can always mod with nicer hardware later on. I have some way more guitar-experiences friends that were very surprised with this guitar, and liked it alot.
I don't think this will be my last Harley Benton guitar.