Martin Smith UK-212-A Soprano Ukulele with Ukulele Bag & Chord Book, Natural

A gift for my grandsons birthday. He loved it. Especially the colour. An instruction book came with it & a case.

Very nice construction , well finished. Has a nice mellow sound and strings appear to keep in tune quite well.

Looks nice, no idea how it sounds though as it's a gift.Hubby has loads of guitars, a banjo , mandolin and keyboard. Thought this would give him something new to try.

My grandson wanted a guitar for his 5th birthday. This was a good compromise and he was delighted. Tuning took some time but that wasn’t a priority for him! The instructions were included if he wants to use them.

As a ‘toy’ ukulele, this item is actually pretty nice. It looks good and once tuned it sounds quite nice. The strings stretch a lot so it takes a good few days of playing and tuning before it holds a tune but even then it still needs regular attention.If you’re buying this as a ‘serious’ ukulele for people who really want to learn then I would look elsewhere. It doesn’t feel the strongest construction and the paint job is fairly thin so will wear pretty quickly.The biggest issue here, after the tuning, is the height of the nut. It is so high that it takes a lot of force to depress the strings at fret one, which make playing many of the chords pretty hard work, especially for little people.If you’re after a cheap and cheerful toy then this will be fine. If you’re after an instrument look elsewhere.

Perfect

I wish I could give this zero stars. It is truly awful.The obvious thing to get out of the way is the adage that "you get what you pay for". Frankly, anyone who thinks they're going to get a custom made, professional grade string instrument for sixteen quid ought to book an appointment with their doctor. There are cases where buying cheap is necessary or appropriate, but know that you're buying something made on a Far East production line that won't have been anywhere near a luthier.I bought this on the assumption that it's going to be tested to destruction, so it was a choice of cheap and replaceable, or bombproof. The latter is too big an investment for a child who may not take to the instrument at all. An additional requirement was that it had to be blue, which rules out most serious models anyway. Having read multiple warnings to avoid Mahalo ukes, I decided to take a punt on a Martin Smith.But there is another side to the low end of the market: merchantability and fitness for purpose. And this product fails miserably. Never before have I had to strip down and rebuild a new instrument to make it playable. The only reason I didn't send it straight back is that my daughter couldn't have coped with that.The tuners were just shoved on carelessly, so that they sat at an angle to the headstock. I was able to refit them correctly. The frets were all bent and not seated properly. I took them all off, cut deeper grooves and reseated them, but they're still a bit wonky. The action was too high both at the saddle and the nut. I've made some effort to correct that. The result of my input is that it's at least playable now, but the intonation is still a bit off. The sound is dull; I'm waiting for some new strings to replace the toy ones supplied with it, but it's a bit like polishing a turd.(UPDATE: As I expected, a set of Aquila Nylgut strings has vastly improved the sound. It actually sounds like a uke now! However, that doesn't negate any of the above.)I'm going to replace it with a Makala Dolphin before she starts her lessons. It was worth the gamble in our case due to our particular situation, but there is no need for anybody else to waste their money.DO NOT BUY THIS UKULELE.

It nice.