Fender Player Series II Telecaster Review and Demo

We’ve got one of the newest Fender Teles here to check out if it’s worth the investment.

It’s been a bit since we had a proper new guitar review on this website! Generally we’re covering only independent builders and smaller brands this year, but I didn’t want to miss out on the new Player Series II hype entirely. As such, I got the chance to plug in the new Player II Telecaster in the Birch Green finish. These are going for $799.99 USD, and are available just about everywhere these days.

Important specs for you to know include an Alder body with Maple C-shaped neck and Rosewood fretboard. The neck has rolled edges, 22 frets, and a 9.5 in radius. It feels like a slightly souped up standard Tele, because that’s exactly what it is. Other features include Fender’s deluxe ClassicGear tuners, Player Series Alnico V pickups, 6 saddle string thru bridge, and standard Tele wiring diagram.

Demo Time

I plugged this Tele into a plethora of my favorite pedals including the Case Study compressor, Summer School Science Fair, and Shotmaker Heroine Deluxe. All of those run into the UAFX Dream amp/cab sim. It’s all stuff you’ve heard on this website before!

My Thoughts

Honestly, I’m not really surprised that I like this guitar. It’s just another great Telecaster. At first I was sort of wondering why Fender would do another update on the Player Series, aside from the standard money grab. But think on this; there is always going to be a huge demand for Telecaster-style guitars, as they’re one of the premier and iconic models in all of history. As new players enter, they will want a Tele of their own. So it makes sense to make new ones that add some more premium features, like the rolled edges here.

This guitar felt great while playing, with nice edges and fret work. The tuning stability was perfectly average. Not flawless, but not problematic at all. It took some big bends and bashing to get it out of tune, so nothing out of the ordinary and even then, it wasn’t maliciously out of tune either. Essentially I think this would be great on stage, with a few minor tuning tweaks here and there as needed.

The sound was crisp and twangy, just like any good Telecaster. I especially enjoyed how much thump they had, as it felt a good bit bassier than other recent Fenders I’ve reviewed. That’s going to be majorly helpful when playing rhythm guitar on this thing. It doesn’t seem like they touched the pickups or electronics up much compared to the original Player series, but they didn’t really have to. These are comfortably a lot more high fidelity than the standard Mexican-made Teles of my childhood. That’s a good thing though, as the Player II Tele is about $300 more expensive than teh Mexi Teles of my childhood. Part of that is inflation from 2010, but the guitar market has also seen an increase in demand to match. Plus, the neck work and setup on these are far superior to the entry level MIM Fenders of yesteryear. The Player II Tele is overwhelmingly solid. And that’s exactly what it should be!

The big winning features here are the aesthetics (it looks amazing out of the box) and the feel of the neck. It’s a player’s guitar, which is really why they went with the easy naming and branding on these. It won’t wow everyone, but it surely won’t disappoint either, and I see this as a really nice “second” guitar for newer players who need to upgrade to something that is stage or studio worthy. The Player II Tele is also not too expensive that the idea of upgrading pickups or electronics down the road is implausible. But you don’t really need to do that, as this is going to sound like a Fender Telecaster. No need to say that any other way.