Lanikai LU21P Pineapple Ukulele

Customer Reviews

Great first ukulele Review by New uker

Sound
Ease of use / Action
Build Quality
Value

After reading a lot of reviews and hearing that they are good enough for some pros such as Jason Mraz, I went for a Lanikai for my first Ukulele. I haven't been disappointed - build quality and sound quality is great for the price.

For a first ukulele, I would say you can't go wrong with a Lanikai. Kala are also good but the best thing about the Lanikai is that it comes with Aquila Nylgut strings which make a huge difference both in terms of sound and playability and mean that you don't have to restring your brand new ukulele. The GHS brand strings that came on the Kala were almost unplayable after the Aquilas.

If you are trying to choose ukulele size, I would say go for a tenor if you have played guitar or have big hands or want to move up the fretboard (e.g. solos / barre chords) rather than just strumming. After playing guitar I found that the soprano felt way too small and limiting due to the number of frets and spacing between them, so I immediately bought a tenor and I'm much happier with the size, although nothing sounds quite as sweet as a soprano for just strumming away. The quality of the tenor ukes also tends to be higher for the same price (e.g. metal tuning pegs).

I would also definitely recommend buying a chromatic ukulele / guitar tuner such as the Aroma / Tanglewood one available here - as ukes go out of tune quite often. (Posted on 09/10/2009)