In about 1992 there was this Jackson Soloist at a shop in Portsmouth that I used to play every time I visited it (I knew the owner well enough). It was beautiful! The only reason I didnt buy it was because it need a re-fret, the pots replaced plus the pu select switch was so worn it could lose the signal completely. All this down to its age & wear.
The question was, would it still play as before after all the work was done on it? It was priced at about £1,400 ($2,800) so I didnt want to take the risk.
Dirty pots can be dealt with by a bit of switch cleaner spray, but its only a temporary fix. The selector switch definatly needed replacing. A re-fret may be fine, but if its not perfect, the set-up may have to change if fret buzz occurs!
For an inexpensive guitar it’s worth a try, but Pete (store owner) didn’t want to carry out the work unless I made a commitment to buy. A fair enough point of view.
One fateful day, after about a year, I dropped in to see what new (& used) guitars were in. The Soloist had been sold! By an odd coincidence another one had been acquired of exactly the same colour (metallic black). It was nearly as nice as the other one to play too. It was nearly new, so had none of the problems the other one had. It was cheaper too. I bought it there & then.
Half of the problem of choosing a guitar is just knowing what you want. You may not always know what you want, but the more you try out guitars the more you will realise what you DON’T want.
To a beginner I would suggest enlisting the help of someone more experienced. I would also suggest sticking to your budget. Learn on a half decent inexpensive guitar. You wont need to be told when you are ready for something better. It will become obvious after about 3 years if you practice enough.
Then you can take your time trying to find what you want. In the example above, I took over a year to find what I wanted. That is a bit extreme, but that’s just how long it took.