This polycarbonate body Guitalele from Korala is an ideal instrument for ukulele players, or guitarists, who wanted to broaden their experience into a different musical format. This tenor scale Guitalele sounds very good for an instrument at this price level, and is well made, together with being extremely economical. We'd like to you to believe us when we say it is a lot of fun, sounds nice and plays well, but lets face it, at this price (which includes delivery), it is surely worth a gamble even if you fear we're overstating the case!
The strings aren't named, although from the three unwound treble strings they certainly appear and sound akin to Aquila. The open geared tuners on the Korala Exceed seem reasonable quality too, and in our tests certainly the tuning was very stable after a bit of a settling in period. The polycarbonate body doesn't give huge sustain, but this has the effect of kerbing the 'boom' you can sometimes get from wound strings - resulting in a very even spread across the strings, without the bass strings dominating. The volume is not super loud with the Exceed Guitalele, but not quiet either - though you can get quite a noise if you strum heavily. This well balanced nature of the tone makes it ideal for strumming or picking multiple strings at once. Perhaps a minor criticism is that picking single strings in a melody isn't overly effective because the sustain is quite short - lending itself more to chocky chords than the melody line.
The fretboard is a seperate piece of ABS plastic, which seems hard wearing - and the fact that it is precision made means that intonation is impressive too for something so inexpensive. Tuned A-D-G-C-E-A, the top four strings are like a regular tenor ukulele with a low G, while the addition of the low A and D not only gives more depth and warmth - but it means you can use guitar chord shapes also. In all, if you've ever thought of trying a guitalele, and have been in two minds about taking the plunge, the fun factor and the fantastic value should have you giving it a go after all.
