« Is this the best Budget Ukulele »

The general consensus in the Ukulele world is that the Makala Dolphin is the best budget starter Ukulele you can get. Its not a view I fully agree with, not counting second hand bargains there are other potentially good Ukuleles aimed at this level. I have played and own Mahalos that are just as good and I think if you hunt around you can find other brands too that have some reasonable Ukuleles for the money. What I think is the case is that with its ABS body, (the soundboard is still wood though), the Dolphin is the most consistently good budget Ukulele and probably the safest if you are buying unseen, (what you must be aware of here is that the bridge design has been widely copied, so there are a lot of imitation / fake ones about with ordinary basswood bodies), and reasonably robust making it an ideal Ukulele to take to places where there is a risk of damage. The ABS also helps with humidity, water resistance and seem splitting, (but is any of that a worry on a starter Ukulele?)

When I first started inviting Ukuleles to the corner and came across the Dolphin, I thought with its bright colours and dolphin shaped bridge, it looked a bit childish. this is why I didn't get one then. Now the look has grown on me, I like the bold colour and the bridge is a bit of fun.

The build and decoration are perfectly adequate done and the open backed 14:1 tuners are perfectly adequate too (I'm not damning it with faint praise here, remember though its on the expensive side of budget, it is still a budget Ukulele and you shouldn't expect miracles on a budget) The GHS strings it comes with do need to be replaced to get the best tone from it but again there is a limit to what you should expect tone-wise from it. In experimenting with different strings I was pleasantly surprised when I tried it with a low G set. It gave a reasonable ever bass dimension to the tone and performed better as a low G soprano that a lot ot the more expensive sopranos I have tried, (also given its price point you don't worry about it to much if you have to widen the nut slot to accommodate) the thicker string