Harley Benton CG-45E Vintage Sunburst

I paid €900 for my "work guitar" a couple of yrs ago, I'm holding this cg45e side by side with my work guitar, if it wasn't for the F holes in my gretch, there would be very little difference in visual qualty.
Action is perfect, frets are smooth, fret ends are perfectly smooth too, tuners aren't just as smooth turning them as the gretch, but they work p'fectly, neck, head, body, inside & out, binding too, I cannot find any problems at all, the over all finish too is faultless.
Its natural sound unplugged is plenty full range for a new guitar, so can only get better as the guitar ages.
Sound plugged in is very nice, balanced nicely through all the strings with flat middle eq. I've had a few quality piezo acoustic guitars with string ballance problems which were difficult to eq 😐
My PA is recent & almost broke my bank, this guitar sounds very nice when plugged into it.
I'll give the gretch a rest for a while now I have this cg45e, will see how it takes to the stresses of regular work, but so far I'm very happy with this €80 budget cg45e 🎶👍 I love it
.addition 6 weeks later. This plays & sounds so good it has moved up my guitar ladder, in fact I use it every time for my smaller gigs, my gretch is saved for the more executive gigs, I have found a neg point which might inters some, in some of my more expressive numbers I can knock the controlls, but easy enough to correct.

It's a great guitar with wonderful sound quality. It's perfect for both strumming or Fingerstyle playing. It feels very comfortable in hand and it's easy to play as a beginner. Best deal at this price point. I am yet to test the pickup and the electrical functionalities, but so far just as an acoustic guitar it has served me greatly.

The design, material and build quality is as good as you can expect at this price. I love the sunburst theme. The only problem I found was that, one pin for attaching the guitar strap was missing. It's not a big deal if you don't wanna perform while standing and don't need a strap. You can also get a pin attached from any local store for less than 5 bucks.

Overall, I'd recommend this to anyone looking for a wallet and beginner friendly multipurpose guitar.

I bought this as a cheap stummer to keep my hand in when back at my parents as I live and work away with no great expectations. As usual with Thomann it arrived promptly.
Straight out of the box it was obviously playable with a surprisingly full tone. The only issue as pointed out by other reviewers was extremely sharp fret ends and a slightly high action. With a tweak of the truss rod with the supplied Allen key and a bit of work filing, smoothing and polishing the frets, paying attention particularly to the ends I have a guitar well above it's price point. The finish is fine, the hardware is alright. I've not plugged it in yet as I have no facilities here and it wasn't the point of me buying it.
I'm conclusion £69 and a fiver for a set of fine files from Homebase, a bit of tidying up and a eminently playable nice little guitar, you can't go wrong!

I have a flawless record with Harley Benton electric guitars. This acoustic one misses the mark. It's very cheap, so I didn't expect bells and whistles. I just wanted something to pick and play unplugged louder sometimes. But the price to quality ratio is not what I came to expect from electric models. Frankly, this one feels like an instrument equivalent of Ikea furniture - cheap, looks sort of nice, but the build is reinforced cardboard, so in the end quality leaves a lot to be desired.

The guitar feels very flimsy compared to my friend's Yamaha. Tuning pegs are HELLA plastic. Finish feels cardboard-ey with a noticeable wrap texture. Many glue and wood leftovers inside the acoustic box. A chip of wood coming off near the acoustic hole. Bracing feels hasty. Nut is too high so barre chords are harder to get clean. Strings are very mediocre quality. And the optional pickguard comes packed in a very regrettable way, wrapped around a headstock with rubber bands, which makes it bent, stratified, and not ready for application. I couldn't get it straightened up having put it under books or my amp for several days.

Listening back to the provided samples I regret not having listened to them more critically before. Now I can see the sustain is indeed weak, and the sound is much less balanced, sharp to the ears compared to other guitars. It almost feels as if the acoustic box is smaller, softer, and shaped wrong.

There are a few positives. The included piezo seems to be rather good quality and sounds quite decent, I like it more than FX310 actually, I'd say similar tier to Ibanez piezos. And the strings, despite their weak sound properties, seem durable as hell, since one of them (5th/A I believe) was tuned quite a few semitones higher than it should when I opened the guitar and it didn't break at all.

Can you play it? Absolutely. Will you have fun? Maybe, especially if you have no reference to other guitars. But if you're serious about playing the guitar. I'd recommend you save your money for something better - you will thank yourself later. Yamaha F310 is just €40 more if you don't need the piezo pickup. If you need one, you're probably still better off buying an Ibanez, even if it's twice the price.

I orderd this guitar because price was so ridiculously low and I was curious what can this guitar offer, especially with built in pickup system.
I was in shock when I got it because not that it sounds very good (maybe the pickup doesn't sound really impresive, still good nevertheless), it also feels very good (neck, body, tuners,...)
The stock strings are also very good sounding, which is a bonus for me.
I can not express this enough, but the sound of guitar is very good, especially for the money. Guitar resonates very well and acousticly it provides a lot of power all across the fq range (also bass)