It doesn't look that bad to me. and yes it's easy to make an active bass passive if it doesn't have active pickups. And those pickups do NOT look active to me. They look like the standard Chinese MM imitation pickups (I've got a box of 5 of them, paid about $20 each. Get the picture? Not horrible but not as good as those on my OLP MM3)
The problem is the bridge pickup is humbucker while the neck appears to be single coil. This could lead to some hum problems. (I bought the chinese pickups to put a second humbucker in the neck position on my MM3)
And I am no fan of Basswood in an ordinary bass (there are some notable exceptions like the Bongo)
But other that that, it seems like a pretty decent 5er for the money. Very similar to my OLP. (which I paid $100 for GC demo unit) And the plus is the nickle hardware which seems VERY nice.
As for the active pre, I wouldn't worry about it unless it really sucks. And even then you can get pretty decent preamps on Ebay for $20-$30.
My personal choice in this price range is SX basses because they are ash or alder and I'm experienced in tweaking them in. But like I said this one is very much like my OLP and I must admit that I love my OLP too. The maple top (on mine) looks great, and tone (after mods) is wonderful. So I'd expect this one to be similar (providing your luck holds out).
