Harley Benton UK-11C Brown

This Harley Benton concert ukulele is a good instrument for its price range. Though the sound is good and feels solidly built when I have played it, it may not hold for rougher handling/touring or outdoor playing for a prolonged timespan. For me, it seems more fit for indoor playing, although I have not tested it in other conditions.

The body of the ukulele feels sturdy and it plays in tune, but the wood feels slightly unpolished and rough. This however does not seem to impact the tone and sound. The frets sticks out a tiny bit from the fingerboard, but this does not impact playing like it would have on a guitar, because the side of your index finger does not touch the fingerboard when playing ukulele. The tuning pegs also feels sturdy and hold the tuning reasonably well, even after the first tuning, although may go off tuning with big temperature changes.

This ukulele seems to project more than a regular ukulele, but not overly so. The sound is strong, the timbre is maybe somewhat darker than a normal ukulele, but the differance is minimal. The strings that come with does however seem flimsy, so they might need changing after some time of playing, maybe a year or two. Strings in a stronger material would probably make the instrument speak more, but if you prefer a more soft and mellow tone the original strings will work, as they seem to be in a softer material.

All-in-all it is a good intrument in its price range, and a good pick for your first ukulele and for the home studio, but perhaps not for professional touring gigs.

Use: Uke beginner - to use uke at home and amongst friends

Clarity: 11C Uke is pretty decent in quality and good to great in sound output. It managed to get the nice soft tones as well as hard pick sounds pretty well. Been using this for a month now and it gets better each time I play it.

Pros & Cons:
What I liked about this uke is that it comes at a minimal price tag, and gives you a good head start in your learning. It doesn't disappoint.

What I disliked about it is the build quality of this uke (but that is expected from a low priced equipment, anyway). When the forearm friction rubs the body of the uke, the wood abrasion is making it bit rough. But that is again minimal or piece-by-piece, I believe.

Comprehensibility:
Good buy for a beginner. Think no further.

I'm a guitarist who wanted a ukulele to see how I liked the instrument so I ordered this, I chose Concert over a Soprano because I prefer the slightly warmer sound and larger range if I ever wanted to use it. I've played ukulele's before but never owned one, here's what I liked and what I didn't:

The Pros:
- The sound is awesome, exactly what I was looking for!
- The setup out of the box was excellent and it was very playable (this is rare in this price point in my experience)
- It looks beautiful
- The cheap case is a nice addition

The cons:
- The fretboard was really dried out, but a little bit of lemon oil fixed that
- Kept losing tune initially, but once the strings are stretched out it holds tune ok but needs a slight adjustment after every session, nothing extreme
- Intonation beyond the 12th fret is not accurate, but only +15 cents so it's not terrible
- Frets are really rough and need to be polished, but can be done yourself

Overall a super purchase, for the money I'm very happy with it. For most people and use cases, this is an excellent Ukulele for the price!