The Korala Explore concert ukulele is fantastic value for money. It takes a bit to get your head around how well it plays and how good it sounds given its brightly coloured polycarbonate body - but when you ignore the fact it's not made of wood, and discard the extremely low price tag - you realise it is simply a nice sounding ukulele. The old saying that you get what you pay for is usually true, but not in this case. You'd struggle to get a concert uke that sounds as good as the Korala Explore for double the money.

The body is made from tough polycarbonate, a robust plastic. This is brightly coloured, giving the uke some fun factor - but isn't painted. Here, the Korala Explore scores highly over the brightly coloured cheap soprano ukes - which are often have very messy paintwork. Another thing to get your head around is the moulded ABS fingerboard, with integrated frets. This again is far superior to the rough painted wooden fingerboards commonly seen on cheap coloured ukuleles. It isn't the first uke to use fingerboards of this type - Magic Fluke ukes from the USA often feature these, and they're a lot more money than this concert uke! The advantage is the fingerboard is precision made, meaning no rough or badly laid frets, no buzz, great low action and (and this is unheard of at this price level), great, accurate intonation up the neck.

The Korala Explore feautures open geared tuners and Aquila strings. This combination gives very good stability of tuning, meaning once the strings have settled you'll only need small tweaks to get tuned up. The sound is really impressive, with great balance over all four strings. The volume is perhaps on the average side - its not quiet but a solid wood ukulele would be louder. But the tone is really pleasant and certainly better than you'd expect for this money.

This is an ideal starter ukulele, with lots of things going for it. First off, the concert size gives a little more room than a soprano, meaning - beginners can enjoy a bit more room between the frets. It is inexpensive, yet very robust. If it wasn't for the metal on the geared tuners it would be totally waterproof - so is ideal for seasoned ukulele players too, who want to take a uke camping or on holiday, but don't want to risk their more expensive instruments.

This ukulele has a screen printed design on the top for a little extra visual impact!