Fender Player II Telecaster review – the best affordable Tele out there?

$799/£719, fender.com

A Telecaster is not a complicated beast. With its slab body, bolt-on neck, simple electronics and trem-free bridge, it’s about as route-one an electric guitar as you can imagine – but as countless icons can attest, a good one will take you all the way to the top and never complain.

• READ MORE: Fender Player II Jazzmaster review – the new king of affordable offsets?

The first rung on that ladder, in Fender terms at least, is the Player series – the Big F’s most affordable Mexico-made instrument line, and arguably its most important given that it is a gateway guitar to a world of Vinteras, AVs, AmPros, Ultras and beyond.

Earlier this year, Fender overhauled the Player range in the shape of the Player II – refining and enhancing what was already a very well thought of line to make it an even more enticing proposition for those of us shopping in the always competitive sub-$1,000 guitar market.

The Player II Telecaster is, inevitably, going to be one of the most popular guitars in the range – the Tele remains a hugely popular choice with players young and old, despite the rise and rise of the upstart offset. Let’s see what it has to offer…

How is the Player II Telecaster different from the Player I?

I covered a fair bit of this ground in my review of the Player II Strat a few months back, but to reiterate – most of the fundamental stuff here is not dramatically different. You still get a gloss-finished alder body, maple neck with 9.5” radius and the same Player Series Alnico V pickups, Tele bridge and control layout. None of that stuff was broke on the original Player so why change it?

What you do get are some small but fairly important differences, most of which are focused on the neck. So, for starters the neck of this very 70s-vibed 3TSB Player II guitar has a rosewood fingerboard as opposed to the pau ferro that non-maple board Player I guitars had. It looks nicer, it plays nicer, it’s what everyone wants – nice. There’s also a nice tint to the maple on the neck here that addresses the slightly anaemic look of the original Player guitars. It’s not so dark as to look brown, but it elevates the whole vibe above the ‘cheap Ikea furniture’ look that often plagues the maple on more affordable instruments. As with the Player I, the maple is gloss-finished on the front of the headstock, but satin on the back – a nice player-centric touch.

Perhaps the most important change to the neck can be found at the edges of the fingerboard. As with the Player Plus guitars launched a few years back, all Player II guitars now have rolled fingerboard edges as standard – where the square edges of the ‘board itself are gently sanded to be more rounded and, so the theory goes, more comfortable to play.

There are some other changes of course. You get a bunch of new finishes, and some tweaks to the formula – most notable replacing the bent steel saddles for block steel ones. Tele purists will bemoan the fact that they’re not brass barrel types – for many players it’s an essential component of the recipe – but the block saddles are probably a decent compromise of mass versus easy intonation tweakability.

One other thing to note is the case, or lack thereof. Fender’s so-called ‘Deluxe’ gigbag has been a cheap and not particularly cheerful misnomer for some time, but rather than give us something better this time, it’s been done away with altogether.

This is no doubt done to keep the costs down (and in fairness to Fender the Player II guitars don’t cost much more than the Player Is did this time last year) and of all the compromises they could have made, it’s probably the most tolerable. I won’t miss the gigbag, but I can also imagine a situation where a kid has saved up just enough to buy themselves their first real Fender guitar and the reality that they’ve gotta stump up and extra $50 just to get the thing home safely might be a bit of a shock, so worth knowing.

Does the Player II Telecaster play well?

There are some people who don’t like rolled fingerboard edges as they seem to think it creates extra space between the board and hand which can lead to fatigue when playing for long periods of time. Those people are, frankly, wrong. Particularly at this sort of price point, the transformative effect of rolled edges on your playing experience simply cannot be understated. It effectively does the job of 20 years of hard-gigging right out of the box, and when most people talk about how vintage guitars ‘feel’ better than modern ones, that’s a big part of what they mean.

Fender Mexico’s QC has not always been spotless in the last few years – particularly in terms of set-ups – so it’s a relief to find that this is a very well-sorted guitar. All six strings vibrate freely without buzzing, and there’s no solo-ruining choking to be found.

My only real issue is an action that’s a little bit on the high side – this wasn’t the case with any other Player II guitars I’ve had in for test so far, and it’s not so bad that you feel like you’re diving off the high board every time you fret a note, but it’s not as slinky as I’d like. A quick check of the neck relief indicates that it’s not a truss rod issue, but it is a little higher at the 17th fret than the 1.6mm Fender expects for a 9.5” radius guitar. A quick tweak of the saddles with a hex key seems to sort that out with minimal fuss.

Does the Player II Telecaster sound good?

Given that most of the changes and tweaks to the playability side of things, it’s not a surprise that things are broadly in line with the previous Player incarnation. That’s no bad thing of course – the neck pickup is vocal and expressive, while there’s much fun to be had with the bridge unit too. It’s clear but not brittle and delivers a range of classic Telecaster tones with pleasing jangle, snap and snarl in both the in-between and pure bridge selector options.

If the rosewood board is making a difference sonically, I can’t hear it – but it looks and feels lovely in the hand, and that’s what’s really important, surely

Should I buy a Fender Player II Telecaster?

Do you like Telecasters? Do you like guitars that play and sound good? Do you have a relatively limited budget? If your answer to any combination of those three questions is yes, then honestly get that credit card out right now and don’t delay. There was pretty much nothing wrong with the Player I Telecaster, but the Player II has enhanced and improved an already good guitar and made it great – a workhorse that takes the load in so many ways.

Fender Player II Telecaster alternatives

If you want something that’s a little more vintage-correct, the Vintera II 60s Telecaster ($1,149/£999/99) is a beautiful beast of a thing, while at the other end of the scale, Squier’s Classic Vibe ’60s Custom Telecaster ($449/£379) is a whole lot of guitar for the money. If you want Tele sounds but not Tele looks, the new Squier Paranormal Offset Telecaster SJ ($449/£419.99) offers a wonderful mix of Jazzmaster and Tele in a beautiful package.