Hi
The response is excellent, mind you I have not really sat down and fully set the thing up, too busy, in the middle of a project.
The string thing was a worry for me too but I haven't noticed it too much. What I miss is being able to slide up and down strings...yes there is a button that lets you do that but it doesn't feel great. This is a problem with a plastic neck. Although you can upgrade the neck to a more responsive one an done that has a proper guitar specification. I also play a lot of staccato runs and I have not been able to translate that yet but as I say I have not set the thing up properly.
What it is good for is recording midi into the machine, I am an alright keyboard player but if I don't know a chord I have to look it up and work out the fingering. With this device I can now go you know what I want a cmaj7 bingo strum. The sound is different because you have six notes instead of 4 but that's also cool because you get a thicker sound, it creates a new texture so to speak. It's also great because I know enough scales on the guitar but not that many on the keyboard, so again it translates my guitar skills into something that is useable for midi and DAW technology.
For 300 bucks and another 160 for the "pro" neck I highly recommend it, remember that this is new technology, think the mellotron. The mellotron was great but you couldn't play it live or if you did you took the risk. And the same is for this device. In 10 years when they perfect the technology it may usher in a new guitar age. You know you are playing something highly experimental when it says on the thing patent pending.
Ben