Best Electric Guitars 2026: Choices For All Styles & Abilities

What are some of the best guitars around right now in January 2026? With the NAMM show literally a week away, is this too early to round up what’s out there?

No, not at all! This is actually a great time to assess what’s on the market, and to choose some excellent instruments to showcase before we move onto the new and the untested. Each of the electric guitars in today’s blog has been played and assessed by me, so these are personal recommendations. Not every guitar is hot off the press, either: there are some that have proven themselves to be major players over the course of the year, so I’m making sure that they are visible here.

For fairness, I’ve divided the guitars into three price points: under £500, £500-1000 and above £1000. I feel like it’s unfair otherwise, even though some of the guitars here punch far above their weight! You can test them for yourselves and see if you agree. 

So, beginning with the most affordable tier, let us see what made the cut…

This initial price point is an important one, because it contains all of the beginner instruments AND a bunch of guitars that go quite some distance beyond that.

My guitar choices here today will all serve you well from the bedroom to the stage, at a price that hopefully won’t cause too much of an obstacle to most guitarists. Neither choice is a beginner guitar in fact, but a highly capable axe for anybody needing one that performs beyond its price.

The Fender Standard Series brings real Fender-branded guitars into the market at under £500, the first time we’ve seen this for a few years now. Pitched above the Squier ranges and below the Fender Player series, these guitars are built in Indonesia and provide very good value.

I’ve opted for the Telecaster model today as a preferred example of mine, but the range contains a Strat, an HSS Strat and a couple of basses, all of which are well worth investigation! The Tele is available in four finish variations (I like the Olympic White one, personally), and is fitted with ceramic single coil pickups. It sounds like a Tele, it looks like a Tele and by golly, it feels like a Tele! One of the world’s most iconic guitars, available for under £500? I’ll take it!

I’ve brought this guitar up a lot, but that’s because it is one of the best guitar deals out there right now and you need to know about it! It would be a great shame if any player on a budget missed out on the quality on offer here. I don’t know how PRS do it, but this guitar kicks the arse of several that cost significantly more.

Why? Well, it’s pretty simple. PRS have kept all of the important stuff (the design itself, the fit & finish, the thick mahogany body, the absolutely killer neck profile etc) and ditched the impressive yet superficial elements (rare timbers, overtly decorative parts, complex finishes) to bring in a guitar that just flat-out delivers. We all already know (I hope) that PRS’s Indonesian-made SE range are great guitars by anybody’s standards, and this stripped back model allows them to just get straight to the point, as it were. There’s no nonsense, right down to the satin finish, which I expect will age and ‘shine up’ in heavily handled areas. Beautiful. Amazingly, PRS have still managed to get their Bird inlays on here, AND throw in a decent gig bag too. Impressed? More like flabbergasted that everyone doesn’t already own one!

In this price range, we’ll start to see guitars that contain branded hardware, or fancier materials, as well as just more complex builds in general. These chosen examples illustrate a huge range of quality that is just out there waiting for you.

I absolutely loved this guitar when I laid eyes and hands on it last summer. The Epiphone Inspired by Gibson 1959 ES-355 (Epiphone like their long guitar names, don’t they?) is really impressively built, with a substantial feel that screams ‘quality’ at you the moment you pick it up.

It’s one of those instantly successful guitars, in the sense that it meets every requirement with a home run. The detailing of the build is excellent (multi-ply binding and block inlays on ebony), the finishing is great and they’ve let this one have the Gibson headstock shape, too. It plays flawlessly and sounds rich and chunky, with that characteristic semi-hollow ‘scoop’ in the tone that makes these guitars so useful.

If you still harbour reservations about dropping this much cash on an Epiphone, all I can say to you is this: play one.

I really do love the Ibanez Iceman, with its strange and yet compelling shape. It’s both outrageous and quite classic, and of course extremely cool! 

But it’ve not encountered one quite like the new Ibanez Iceman IC420MFM. It’s the combination of elements that feels so fresh, from the maple fingerboard (with customary parallelogram inlays), to the lovely caramel burst finish over the same maple top, set off by gold hardware. Talk about luxury?! It’s a gorgeous thing indeed, and still delivers that thick, crunchy Iceman tone that has made the model such a hit with the hard rock brigade.

It’s pretty much open season here in this price bracket! Anything from £1000 upwards could mean a huge amount of exquisite axes with top prices to match. I’ve decided to not do that, necessarily. The three I’ve opted for are all pretty different, and they are all excellent buys in their own way. Pro quality, in different styles, and from a number of different countries of manufacture. Dig in!

A proper White Falcon for how much?

Yes indeed, it’s a Gretsch White Falcon (you can have black, too) from their new Synchromatic range, and as of January 2026, it is a good few £££ less than £1500! Including a hardshell case! It’s the deal of the century, clearly!

Well, it’s the deal of the century as long as it’s a good guitar, right? So, I’m happy to tell you that this Chinese-made model definitely has that signature Gretsch feel and tone, to the point where I’d say this is maybe all you need to fulfil your wildest Billy Duffy/Neil Young ambitions. It’s a comfy, rewarding thing to use, and is full of that magical Gretsch charisma. A step up from Electromatics for sure, and that’s praise because those guitars are really good instruments.

At this price, well, it’d be rude not to! 

It’s no secret to patrons of guitarguitar that we love Suhr. This love has been a long and happy one, and based entirely on Suhr’s ability to build consistently incredible instruments. It’s just one of those situations where they do their thing exceedingly well, and most players who pick one up to try agree with that sentiment pretty quickly.

I went for the Suhr Limited Edition Modern in Antique Yellow today. I love the brand’s more ‘50s and 60s’ inspired guitars but they also do a great 80s-style Superstrat. With a roasted maple neck and Antique Yellow finish, this one both stands out and blends in, making for as subtle or as OTT a visual statement as you want.

This duology is true of the sounds, too. An H-S-H pickup configuration is the order of the day here, and must surely be the most versatile set up around? This guitar is filled with hand-made Suhr pickups, and there’s a couple of extra switches installed for even greater tonal shifting. 

Add all of that to a fantastic neck, a great build and lovely specs (stainless steel frets, 2-post tremolo bridge with vintage saddles) and you have a real recipe for guitar playing happiness.

2025 was a good ol’ year for Oasis, with their comeback tour being one of the most hyped in history. Gibson made sure that mainman Noel was sorted out for classy guitar gear by first building him a custom shop Les Paul and then releasing a production model of it in the form of this Gibson Noel Gallagher Les Paul.

It’s super-cool, and will appeal to players across the board, whether they are Oasis fans or not. It’s a simple thing: Les Pauls are great, Les Pauls with P90s are even greater, and black guitars with chrome pickup covers will always be timelessly stylish.

If you are a fan of Tyler guitars, then I’m sure this will be the guitar you’ve been waiting for! JTG are official, Chinese-made versions of Tyler instruments. The JTG MK1 is their take on the famous Tyler Studio Elite, an eccentric, high quality S-type with immense playability and awesomely outlandish finishes.

This is no mere licensing exercise, either: these JTG guitars have been created by builders specially trained by Tyler’s own people, and are held to high levels of scrutiny. They are vastly impressive guitars by anyone’s account, and whilst the finishes don’t quite go as far as the full-on ‘Burning Water’ vibe, they aren’t far off!

There you go. That’s a handful of the best guitars around right now, and as we make our way through 2026, it’ll be very interesting to see what transpires. That’s some stiff competition to beat right there! Did you see any of your favourites in my list today?

We’re a lucky bunch, to be experiencing this level of quality at such (mostly) affordable prices, and if you want the full boutique experience, we have lots of that too! However your guitar buying plays out this year, it’s bound to be pretty great, one way or another. Enjoy!