cancelxo7, go for it!

I bought my first violin for a little over 70$, from the company you mentioned.  I think it is the cheapest electric on the planet at that price and it is mostly made of plastic (glass filled epoxy, according to a friend who knows more about plastic than I do). 

That was in March 2012. Over 18 months later, I'm still playing it. In fact, it is the violin I play the most, since it is very quiet for practice any time of day or night, unplugged.  So I have played the tar out of it, over an hour a day at least.  It holds tune, the action isn't too bad, and it actually doesn't sound bad through an amp or for recording.  

That isn't intended of an endorsement of that company or their electric violins, but saying that it is possible to get instruments that are playable enough to learn on and have some fun with in the kind of price range you are talking about.  It may even actually hold up for a year or few.

After I'd been playing for some months, I "rewarded" myself with an acoustic violin that I paid 160-170$ or thereabouts for, that I am still quite pleased with.  It gets played pretty much every day too, but not as much as that electric, because I live with other people, and violins just aren't the quietest instrument in the world.  Besides, I like playing electric.  Not saying I don't enjoy playing acoustic too, but I think of myself as more an electric style of player.

It sounds like you know enough about the instrument to know if they send you one with real bad problems, where they should replace it with another one.  So there's not much risk of you getting stuck with something really awful and thinking all the badness in the sound is just you.  So I'd say the risk is more acceptable than for someone who has never played before.

In my opinion, it is better to start with what you can afford and get started, than to put off starting until you can afford something more expensive.  The player is always going to be most of the sound, and getting in practice/experience is a more effective way to get to sounding decent than hunting for a really nice instrument.  You can do that later, when you have played enough to know the shortcomings of the inexpensive instrument and have a good idea what you'd really like from an upgrade instrument.  Then you can spend more money, sure... But you'll also spend it more wisely.

The folks that tell you "Oh, you should spend at least 300$ for a starting instrument..", well, I think most of them are just trying to save you some headaches.  But if their favorite number of $ just isn't in the cards for you right now, then get what you can afford now and wail with it. 

Cool, cancelxo7.  But remember I may have lucked out and gotten a good one, while the next one off the line could really be crap.  The biggest problem with inexpensive instruments is that the quality can vary so much from one to another of even the same model. 

But at the price range you're talking about, how far wrong can you really go?  If it's for fun and to see if you like the instrument and what you can do with it, I can't see spending a lot right off the bat.  Once you put in enough time on the instrument to be pretty sure it's something you want to do, then upgrading is sensible.