I want to start playing acoustic-electric guitar. What kind of brands or guitars are the best for beginners?

Question

my price range is as little as 0-300 dollars. I hear Ibanez, Gibsons, and of course Fenders are great.

Answer 1

I'd go with a cheap epiphone, which is a branch of gibson. Just incase you end up not liking it. I have an eletric acoustic epiphone AJ100CE. It's pretty good an only 160 bucks. www.musiciansfriend.com has good prices.

Answer 2

how much can you afford? sounds as if you need to find a guitar shop. but if you plan on keeping it and playing it forever try a Gibson. Martin, Guild, as they don't make a cheap Chinese guitar that I know of under that brand name, but if you look you can find hundreds of Chinese boxes that are playable, check Seagull out, Canadian made around $600 real nice for the price, but as affordable goes Ibanez, Yamaha, Talkmine(Chinese Martin) Fender,mostly Chinese unless high end, (buy the Guild owned by Fender made in US and is a superior box for the 1k+ price tag,) Gibson does the Epoch(made in China) there all decent boxes in that 2 to 3 hundred dollar price range but you'll get what you pay for.

then there's the $99.99 special, BEWARE!!