not dread related - does anyone here play ukulele?!

ganna buy one - any recommended makes? what should i avoid? should i get a plain one or a pretty pretty one?

 

you want quality,, maybe $100+ or better. junk for 25-50 bucks.
fender ukelele have nice sound..
http://www.fender.com/products/index.php?section=acoustics&bodyShape=Ukulele

 

£65 for a uke when i can get a cheap one to learn on?! hell no.
friend has suggested a mahalo, but ive seen a pure tone i like

 

I have a mahalo, cheap/easy to start with for decent quality. It's a good learning piece, and you can always upgrade when you go pro.

 

Don't fall for the "student instrument" fallacy.

You won't learn as well on shit, you will be frustrated, you will learn bad habits to compensate for playing a pos, you will have less fun.

I don't play uke, but do play other stringed insturments, and this is pretty much invariably the case.

If you buy a pos fretted insturment, you'll have frets out of tune, frets not set the right hight, badly adjusted bridge, nut will be too high/low, cheap wood on fretboard and thin frets will wear down, shit machine tuners will wear out faster if not broken from the start and won't stay in tune for shit, body wood will be cheap soft stuff in smaller pices with more seams which makes a weak ugly sounding pos, neck may be twisted and varnish will wear off......

I'm sure that's not it, but it's as much as I care to type.

If you buy junk it will play like junk, it makes a lot more sense to buy the best you could ever want from the start, instead of buying a bunch of slightly less shitty instruments before you even get one you can properly play.

Seriously, them things is cheap anyways. For most insturments you're looking at 2-30x as much as a really nice uke, to even get a pos. Low-mid range guitar or mandolin is 300-600 dollars or so, for example. For a violin, you could double those numbers.

 

thats the kinda feedback i was after i dont play an instrument, so i dont know what to look for/avoid, so thankyou