Harley Benton HBMA-50E Mandoline BK

I am a guitar player and this is my first mandolin after ~20 (gosh!) years of playing. I never even tried one before, so my opinions are purely related to this specific instrument as I have no benchmark.

I am in love with the instrument, it sounds nice, bright and loud acoustically, I can't keep my hands off it. The string height can be adjusted, which is something i didn't expect on such a inexpensive instrument, and I have to say that I'm pretty impressed because you can get pretty low without buzzing! Neck relief can be adjusted too, but I didn't really need to adjust it on my instrument.

I haven't tried the pickup yet, but I guess it's a plain simple single coil, there might be some hum but come on, I won't play this mandolin with distortion (or will I?)
Frets' edges are a bit sharp, but nothing to really prevent you from playing and have fun. The scale is so short that my hand covers 10 frets, there's no real need of sliding back and forth that much. Also, the neck is so thin that your hands won't be as "tightly wrapped" around it as on guitar. Higher price instruments will probabily have a better fret job, but as far as I am concerned, this instrument is brilliant.

I've been a celtic bouzouki player for a decade now and I've always considered getting a cheap mandolin to use as a "half-instrument" while traveling and having fun outside.

Recently, I needed a mandolin for a very specific project and I quickly settled on this one. I'm so glad I did!

It has great construction, lovely curves, it's made of real solid wood, and sounds absolutely fantastic! I was very impressed with the color and finish, too - it only has the smallest of flaws that took me days to notice. For the price, that's just amazing to see. Good job, Harley Benton!

PROs: Great playability, great construction, awesome sound.
CONs: The usual things for the price class - imperfect factory setup, soft bridge prone to chipping, one tuner is harder to turn than the others. Nothing major to worry about!

One bigger complaint I have has to do with the pickup, which is very noisy and not that loud, making it practically unusable for my needs. But again, for that price, I can't fault HB. I'll change it with a better one in the future if I feel like it.

All in all, I highly recommend this beautiful mandolin. It's good for beginners or people like myself who just want to take an instrument outside without worrying about its size or fearing they'll accidentally bump it somewhere. All of the joy, none of the fuss.

If you're on the fence - don't be, just get it and enjoy!

I have a £600 Kentucky carved maple mandolin and while this Harley Benton doesn't sound as good acoustically it's still a fantastic instrument for very little money. Plus it has a magnetic built in pick up which is great for jams, sessions an open mics. I had to put an £80 piezo style pick up on my Kentucky so as to avoid drilling any holes etc. This mandolin cost less than the pick up. Sure, the fret edges were a little sharp but 5 minutes with a fret file sorted that out. It has a slightly wider neck at the nut than my Kentucky....30mm v 28mm and while that gives you a bit more room it also makes it harder to fret two courses of two strings. A double edged sword. Absolutely reccomend this to anyone considering trying to introduce mandolin to their repertoire.