leftie1959
Buy the fender squier combo. It comes with an amp, guitar tuner and strap. Very good buy for the money. It is under $250. As a repairman, I rarely fixed squier and that is because they were factory set perfectly.

Winston Wolfe
For metal you'll probably want something with a humbucker (2-coil) pickup in the bridge position. In case you don't know what that means, the bridge is the metal part that anchors the strings to the body. The pickups are the things in the body under the strings that pick up the vibrations and turn them into electric sound signals. The wide, rectangular humbucker pickups (sometimes they have a rectangular cover; sometimes you can see the two coils side-by-side) give a thicker, chunkier sound. Single coil pickups look like narrow strips and they give a twangy sound. Squier is a good brand in your price range but their cheapest models have single coil pickups. You can get Squiers with humbucker pickups but they don't come in the guitar/amp package deals. Epiphone makes low-price guitar/amp packages and theirs have humbucker pickups. I'd suggest an Epiphone guitar with a Squier amp. The Squier amp will give you a very wide range of tone and the Epiphone guitar will give you that chunky metal attack without having to pay for a premium model. Good luck!

mirandahurtado@sbcglobal.net
IF YOU ARE WILLING TO SPEND MORE THAN $300 ON A GUITAR AS A BEGINER i WOULD DEFINATELY WOULD NOT GO FOR A sQUIRE, WITH ALL DUE RESPECT TO THE OTHERS. HEAVY METAL IS ABOUT A BIG, POWERFUL, MEATY SOUND. LIKE SOMEONE SUGGESTED, HUMBUCKER SOUND. BUT ALSO HEAVY METAL IS ABOUT SPEED, SO YOU WANT A GUITAR WITH AN EASY, PLAYABLE NECK. SQUIRES ARE KINDA STIFF GUITARS. I WOULD GO FOR AN IBANEZ GRG170DX GIO. I THINK THEY GOT FOR BELOW $300

V4zCeNt
Does the amp need to be included in the $350? I'd say Schecter or Ibanez for metal.

Dave Keenan
On the basis of what I learned from HarmonyCentral.com (a wonderful resource) I bought an Epiphone Les Paul Special II and a Roland Microcube (amp). The only problem with the guitar, for my daughter, is its sheer weight. But then most electric guitars are heavy. The Roland Microcube is insanely great.