Best guitars for beginners

Choosing your first guitar is exciting. It can, however, also be quite daunting. After all, you don’t want to make the wrong choice and be stuck with a beginner guitar that isn’t suited to you. Allow us to help. Here we round up a selection of the best guitars for beginners - both acoustic and electric - that are perfect for those looking to start playing.

Many beginner guitarists opt to start with an acoustic guitar, and it’s certainly the cheapest option – there’s no need to buy a separate guitar amp, and you can get started right away.

Electric guitars, on the other hand, have more components to get to grips with, but they’re also more versatile, particularly if you want to play rock or metal music, so they make great guitars for beginners too. However, you’re also then entering the wonderful world of amplification, and therefore amplifiers, which brings with it another dimension to consider.

What are the best guitars for beginners?

While every guitar in the list has its own merits, there are a couple that stand out above the rest. In terms of acoustic guitars, the Martin LX1E is one of the best guitars for beginners and an outstanding instrument for players of any age or ability. Its smaller size makes it portable, yet this guitar still pumps out some serious volume. The craftsmanship from Martin is excellent too, meaning the LX1E could easily last your entire playing career. Yes, it’s slightly more expensive than your usual beginner guitar, but in terms of pure value the Martin LX1E is peerless.

For a beginner electric guitar, we’re happy to recommend the Squier Classic Vibe ‘50s Stratocaster. At the very entry-level sits Squier’s Affinity range, which are decent guitars, but just above that sits the Classic Vibe range which is streets ahead in terms of value. The combination of superb build quality, excellent tones and stunning looks make for an enticing package, and one which you won’t grow out of any time soon.

Best guitars for beginners: buying advice

It can be hard to know what to look for when first investigating the best guitars for beginners. It’s maybe helpful, therefore, to look at some of the options you have and examine how they’ll best suit your needs.

Acoustic vs electric guitar?
First and foremost, the choice you need to make when choosing a beginner guitar is whether you want to go acoustic or electric. While both will offer the experience you’re looking for, there are some fundamental differences. Most obvious is the sound; acoustic guitars are designed to work without amplification. This means they are much louder, and require no extra peripherals to work.

Electric guitars, on the other hand, will play without being amplified but you’ll find them much quieter. Plug one into an amplifier, however, and everything changes. Playing-wise, you’ll probably find electric guitars easier to handle on account of their thinner necks and smaller form-factor. 

Everything you need to know about beginner acoustic guitars
If it’s a beginner acoustic guitar you’re looking for, you’ll want to consider a few factors. Body shape is perhaps the most important. Larger body guitars produce a much fuller, rounder sound with pronounced bass tones. These are great for strummers or anyone looking to fit in with a band. The downside is that they can be cumbersome, particularly to less experienced players. 

Smaller-bodied acoustics are easier to handle but don’t project their tone as well. This, however, may not be a problem if you’re playing fingerstyle, for example. The famous dreadnought shape - arguably the most common - offers a good balance between size and projection, and is a good place for most beginners to start. 

Away from body shape, you’ll want to look at the guitar’s neck and fingerboard, and the distance between the strings and frets. We’ve heard countless examples of people who want to learn the guitar but have been put off after playing acoustic guitar strings that feel like cheese wire. For this reason, electrics are often a better bet for many learners, particularly those with smaller hands.

Everything you need to know about beginner electric guitars
If you’ve decided to start with an electric guitar, the choices are far wider and more varied. Electric guitars come in many different shapes and sizes, but there are a few fundamental points which are common across every guitar. Assuming you want to play plugged in, you’ll want to look at the guitar’s pickups. These are the devices which translate your playing into an electrical signal that an amplifier turns into sound. Single coil pickups are versatile, and suit many different playing styles like rock, jazz and blues. Humbuckers, on the other hand, produce a fatter, rounder sound which works well for heavier styles or music.

Electrics also tend to have smaller necks than acoustic guitars, which is good for beginners, and they make the best guitars for kids and small hands – particularly ‘short-scale’ models, where the frets are closer together, making it easier to play chords.

At the start of your playing career, some factors that more experienced players favour - like different woods for bodies and necks - are less of a concern when it comes to choosing the best beginner guitar for you. The important thing when starting is to find a guitar which is comfortable, sounds good and has that all-important lure to keep you coming back to it. As with anything, you get what you pay for, but with the list of the best guitars for beginners we believe we’ve found the sweet spot between price, performance and playability. 

These are the best guitars for beginners right now

Acoustic guitars

The Ed Sheeran-favoured Little Martin has a shorter scale length than many of the other acoustic guitars in this guide, which makes it one of the best guitars for small hands. It does feel a little industrial, but from the first strum, its more conventional spruce-top voice will have you captivated. It's serious fun. 

The material may be man-made, but the fingerboard and bridge look like dense ebony, while the dark-hued HPL back and sides ape dark, rich mahogany, giving it a classy feel. Like its acoustic voice, the Martin sounds very 'conventional' plugged in and that's no bad thing, especially for beginners. It's really easy to dial in, making it open-mic ready – when the time comes!

The entry model of the Classic Design Series is a good reminder of just how much guitar you can get for your money at the more affordable end of the market. Here, we're offered a solid-wood mahogany top, laminated mahogany back/sides and an inviting rolled fretboard edge, which makes playing comfortable for beginners. 

The CD-60S's action is great out of the box, too. The mid-character of mahogany is certainly here, bringing some meat to a brightness usually associated with spruce tops. The result is something that’s genuinely inspiring to play and chimes in chord work. Why should new players settle for just okay when they need to be comfortable and inspired?

As one of the ‘big two’ in acoustic guitars - along with Martin - there is a level of quality and excellence that can be reasonably expected from Taylor. This is, after all, a brand that produces guitars that cost as much as a family car. Yet with the Taylor GS Mini, they’ve produced a guitar which packs in all that high-end know-how and experience for a price that sits a shade under $500. 

The GS Mini is small enough for anyone to feel comfortable with, yet produces the kind of tone that will make your knees go weak. Build quality and overall playability is superb, making this the perfect guitar for anyone, no matter where they are in their playing career.

This affordable model from guitar giant Yamaha is a typically classy, clean acoustic build with a matt finish that gives a lived-in working guitar appearance. There's little ornamentation, the fingerboard dots are small and lack contrast but the white side dots are clear and bright – great for beginners. 

The three-piece neck, with a roomy full C profile, immediately engages. The tuners are quite generic but more than up to the job, while the nut and compensated saddle are well cut with a sensible, get-on-with-the-job string height. Dreadnoughts, of course, come in many different tonal shades but we should expect plenty of roomy lows, 
a strong thump in the lower mids, crisp highs: a big projecting sound. Well, the FG800M ticks those boxes and some.

The G9511 is a parlour guitar, which means it possesses a much smaller body than, say, a dreadnought – good news for kids and smaller-bodied players! Tone-wise, this acoustic guitar is wonderful; airy, bright and sparkling, without any of the harshness you might expect from a spruce and laminate combination. 

Make no mistake, this is a relatively trebly guitar and the low E string, in particular, is positively quiet, but that’s no bad thing. It would be easy to act snobbish about the laminate back and sides, but don’t be. Instead, try this guitar for yourself and you’ll find it better than many more expensive rivals, even some of those with all-solid woods.

Electric guitars

The Squier Classic Vibe ‘50s Stratocaster is a sight to behold. It sits above Squier’s entry-level Affinity range but boasts far superior build quality, hardware and tone. We particularly liked the vintage tuners and tinted slim-profile neck, while the range of sounds produced by the Fender-designed single-coil pickups is superb.

There is a slight leap in the price above the Affinity guitars, but the accompanying leap in overall quality makes this a guitar that shouts value for money. We’d even go as far as to say the Classic Vibe range in its entirety gives many higher-priced guitars - including Fender’s own Mexican range - a run for their money. Highly recommended.

Aimed at guitarists taking their first steps in rock, this Slash-approved beginner model certainly offers the look of the Guns N' Roses guitarist's preferred instrument. It also features two of Epiphone's exceedingly powerful Ceramic Plus humbuckers; plus, built into the bridge pickup ring is a Shadow E-Tuner, activated via a small push- button on the ring – it's incredibly useful for first-timers to have a tuner close to hand at all times. 

The string height is plenty low for beginners, and the pickups are high-output enough for a decent rock guitar tone, even though the neck pickup is a little dark and underwhelming. However, any misgivings you may have will be more than washed away by the great price.

The original Fender Mustang is something of a cult classic. It was loved by alternative bands and players - including Kurt Cobain - in the '90s for its short scale, affordability and potential for modding. The Bullet Mustang is the most affordable version of the model yet. In keeping with Squier’s other entry-level models, it features a basswood body, which gives it an incredibly lithe, lightweight feel. This, combined with its 24-inch scale length, makes it a great choice for beginners.

The two humbuckers are the most obvious departure from the original, providing angular grit in the bridge position and a pleasing, earthy warmth in the neck. The bolt-on maple neck and six saddle hardtail bridge feel reassuringly rigid, while the tuners did a sterling job in our tests of holding their pitch without too much hassle. 

The Streamliner concept is simple: to create more affordable Gretsch guitars without losing their specific DNA. This particular example is a semi-hollow design, which means it puts out more volume when unplugged and offers an earthier, less aggressive tone than a solidbody design when plugged into an amp, which is great for blues and country music. It does, however, have a slightly thicker neck than the other electric guitars in our guide, so it's not one of the best guitars for small hands. 

The G2622's construction gives a different response and resonance to other new releases from Gretsch and, with these pickups, moves further from the Gretsch sound, approaching the character of Gibson's classic ES-335 design. The beefier Broad'Tron humbucker pickups broaden the sonic potential while staying close to the classic iconography. 

Image 1 of 5

The Yamaha Pacifica has long proved a benchmark for quality and specification, and the 112V remains one of the best guitars for beginners. The 112 is far from fancy and simply concentrates on the bare necessities. Yet the construction is of excellent quality. Trust us, if looked after, this will be a guitar for life. 

By design, it's an altogether more modern, brighter and lighter take on a hot-rod Strat. But when we say brighter that doesn't mean overly shrill. In fact the bridge humbucker will surprise some; it's beefy without being too midrange heavy, and features a coil-split - which essentially transforms its bridge humbucker into a single coil - for increased versatility. 

The solo single-coils impress - there's plenty of percussion and with a little mid-range beef added from an amp, these get you to the correct Texas toneland. Neck and middle combined produces a fine modern Strat-like mix - the added brightness will cut through a multi-FX patch nicely.