I would recommend finding a guitar with emphasis on acurate intonation
and action, and less on sound - it takes a long time to get desired sound
from aguitar or even recognize it, but you start getting used to bad intonation
and compansating for it unconcsiencley right away (very bad autodidact habit).
therfore, I wouldn't recommend buying a mexican fender blindly, because
some of them really s**k.
if possible, it would be very good of you to acompany him to the store
cause non-guitarists tend to think the price has something to do with
the quality of the guitar... :?: where do they get that idea?

sucsess
adam