Mini Amps for Practice: any good?

[dpbird90]

I'm not really clued up with guitars and amps etc, thinking of getting my first guitar, only have a tiny budget so looking at cheap Chinese made lookalikes (theres a nice looking Les Paul-alike on eBay for under £50), but obviously I need to buy an amp with that. Came across these sort of thing, start at a fiver but this ones a bit pricier:
http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/3W-Portable-Mini-Guitar-Ampl...

From the dimensions given it sounds like they're around the size of a large tape measure, maybe a bit bigger, and the cheaper ones do seem a bit of a bargain, however seeing as I don't have a proper amp at all is it worth getting one of these?

[dpbird90]

shirt]search ebay for 'amplug'. they're made by vox [legendary amp. co.] and get positive reviews [not tried one myself said:

.

my mate uses his the line in on a cheapo mini hifi.

and if you're buying a cheap guitar, stick to a second hand squier. don't buy anything on ebay with a chinese listing.

Cheers I'll take a look. Hmm those Squiers do look pretty good. There's a music shop in London called Swift as well who make their own guitars, they seem to offer quite a lot for £49.99, a Strat or LP copy. Any good?

[dpbird90]

shirt said:

£50 for a new guitar from an unknown. not going to be good is it?

the squiers are so cheap because of the volume they sell in. anything at a £50 level is going to be hopeless. a hopeless guitar makes you quit learning in no time, i know as i did many times until i bought a decent one last yr.

ebay/gumtree etc are your best bet. there's a website caleld harmony central that has a massive database of user reviews for guitars.

Thanks I'll take a look. Of course I'm not expecting something truely astonishingly good at this price, but if the ones I'm looking at are going to be hopeless I'll look on eBay for some Squiers