Guitar fretboards and necks are pretty complex subjects. How a neck feels when you play it is based primarily on four factors - Profile, Scale Length, Fretboard Radius, and Fret Size. Most acoustic and electric guitar fretboards are curved from side to side. And, yes, acoustic and electric guitar fretboards are pretty much identical.
The neck of an acoustic guitar is usually glued to the body but some companies like Taylor bolt the neck onto the body. Electrics can have glued or bolt-on necks and the more expensive brands employ 'one piece' design, where the neck and body are both milled from the same piece of wood, then the "wings" of the body are glued on. Rosewood, sandalwood, maple and mahogany are best for making guitar fretboards. With bolt on necks, if the neck warps or becomes in any other way undesirable, it can easily be replaced.
A good design is one that allows the guitarist to play his or her guitar even in the dark, when they can barely see the fretboard at all. A guitar fretboard usually has 21, 22 or 24 frets. Some Parlor acoustic guitar fretboards only have 18 or 19 frets. Neck shape is a critical element in the feel of the guitar. Turn any guitar over and take a look at the fretboard from the bottom of the neck, and you should be able to see an arch going across the fretboard. Rounder fretboards (those with a smaller radius) make it easier to play chords, but make it more difficult to bend strings when playing lead guitar. Flatter fretboards make it easier to play lead and allow bent notes to ring freely, but some players find them less comfortable. Common radius range is from 7 1/4", which was common on old Fender guitars, to 12", to some very flat fretboards which range up to about an 18" radius. The Les Paul has a 12" radius and most modern guitars use a 12" radius. If a neck is too wide for a given string spacing, fretboard space is wasted and the neck will feel unduly large for the guitar. Some modern guitars, particularly hard rock style guitars, have gone to a flatter fretboard radius.
A fret (tang) is piece of wire that is hammered into the fretboard so that a specific note is played when a string is held against it. Fretwire is available in many different sizes but can be roughly grouped into two widths, medium and a jumbo. A critical fretwire dimension is the height of the wire. Many players feel the taller fretwire is much easier to bend strings on. Also hand vibrato, the shaking of a string or chord, is much easier to accomplish on a taller fretwire as there is less finger contact between the hand and the fretboard in such instances. Over the last few decades guitar players have tended to move toward taller fretwire.
Most electric guitars today are built in one of two common scale lengths, 24 3/4" and 25 1/2". Important to the feel of the guitar, in addition to scale length, is the geometry of the string spacing and neck width and depth. String spacing is very critical to the feel of a guitar and is determined by two measurements; the width of the bridge or saddles on the guitar body and the width of the neck at the nut.
If you have a neck that feels good to you, the other aspects of the guitar can be relatively easily changed. When a player develops a feel for a particular guitar, while the looks of that guitar and even the sound of that guitar are certainly important to the player, the truly important details relate to how the guitar feels under the player's fingers.
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