Makai TK-65 Mahogany Tenor Cutaway Ukulele with Pickup

The instrument looks & sounds beautiful. BUT, they shipped it in a strange way: It was in a triangle-type box that fit the instrument, so that was the good part. But, then that box was put in a gigantic box (like 4 ft long by 2 ft wide) with a couple little air packs tossed in. So, the triangle box was probably tossed around in the super-big box ALOT. Thankfully, the instrument didn’t have any visible damage, so I was relieved. Also, I ordered two sets of replacement strings which were just thrown in the larger box. The larger bix wasn’t secured/taped very well and I think a set of strings slipped out during shipping. I tried looking up how to inform the seller, but it was not an easy thing to do for a $5 set of strings.

I took a chance on ordering this. I don't normally like buying online as you never know what you are getting until it's here. Better to go to your music store and play what they have so you know what is good and what you like and what you are getting. But we don't have much of a choice that way so sometimes ordering online is just the chance you have to take. I was kind of leery of this, but got it, and am surprised by how nice it really is, First of all the strings it comes with are crap. You will want to replace them with Aquilas. On mine the C string would simply not stay in tune at all the tuning head was loose I had to tighten that. I took the lousy stock strings off, and used brass wool to freshen up the frets and lightly lemon oiled the fingerboard. Then I put on new Aquila strings and tightened the tuning head. It sounds and plays great and will only get better as it breaks in and the strings get fully stretched. For under 200 if you can handle doing things like this yourself it's a great little uke, if you aren't comfortable doing these things you might want to order from a place that will do a setup for you and take care of these things. It's honestly better than I was expecting.

Easy to play with decent tone.

This is a great uke and is well made and looks good. The tone is good and it sounds good out of an amp as well. Tuner and controls work well I really like this instrument.

I didn't buy mine from Amazon, but I thought I'd post a review for all those interested. For the price, you won't find anything better. The stock strings sound okay, but there was a definite improvement in sound quality when I switched them out with Aquila strings. I've had mine for about 2 or 3 years now and it's still the main ukulele that I play (until I scrounge up enough money to buy a higher quality one). The built in tuner comes in handy if you are not accustomed to tuning by ear, and the pickup is also definitely an added bonus. I also picked up a Kala Ukulele Amplifier (this time from Amazon) to go with this ukulele, and with some fine tuning of the bass and treble, the sound blew my expectations out of the water. The only drawback of this ukulele that I can see is that it is a tenor, so people with small hands may find more difficulty playing than the smaller soprano or concert. I found that sopranos were a little to small for me and I liked the sound quality of a tenor over a concert so this was a perfect upgrade from the soprano that I had began playing on.