[gkya]

Squire makes lovely guitars. I owned one for some time in my first years (never became professional, play to myself on and off since years), it was a cyan strat, and people were amazed with the general intonation of the thing. The stupid 16yrs old version of me traded it for a shitty acoustic because I didn't have the money to buy a second one. I could still have that cheap piece of beauty and play it with joy.

The whole "tone" business (pun unintended) is a bit shady IMO. With an electric instrument, the wood contributes only so much to the tone. I'd look for sustain, feedback and intonation over that, especially in the cheaper segment. You can set up some nice tones with volume and tone on the guitar and the equalizer on the amp. Put on a nice set of strings and you're good to go. Tip: use a tuner app to test the notes from random places all over the neck, at least one note each fret. Make sure everything is in tune. With some cheaper guitars, they place the first few frets correctly and don't care that much for the rest.