Yamaha GL1 Guitalele

I keep raving about this one. When I started playing the guitar, I got a dreadnought, nothing too expensive. It was great! It's pretty loud and slightly unwieldy though, so I noticed I only played the thing for an hour on a Friday when no one was home.

I made some progress, but it was slow.

At this price, the Yamaha GL1 seemed like quite the bargain so I thought: Heh, why not just pick it up?

Boy am I glad I did. This thing just lays around the house, and I seem to pick it up whenever I have a few minutes. Playing the guitar became PLAYING the guitar.

Now, by the time I play something on the dreadnought, I've probably already played it 20 times on this thing. It plays wonderful, resonates like crazy and truly is an instrument, not a toy.

Sure, some people would classify this as a travel guitar. Not me though. To me, this is the perfect practice guitar.

It's been so good, that right now, I'm eyeing the Cordoba Mini Series. A different price class, but the form factor is really ideal for anyone looking to gain some practice.

Nicely built for the price BUT the bridge was about 2mm off where it should have been. So the intonation was terrible.
Unfortunately I had already added a tailpiece because I want to fit it with steel strings (long story) so I konw that I can't return it.
I bought one of these Yamaha GL1 years ago and it was fine so probably a one off manufacturing error - but it should have been caught in QA.
If you buy one of these check the intonation and if it's off send it back and hope the replacement is not built wrong.

This Guitalele was a gift, so I played it only few days.

Cons: build quality is a bit worse than what one might expect seeing photos of Yamaha GL1. No color and no lacquer on a few spots on the back of the body and overall finish could be much better.

Pros: very playable instrument and a lot of fun to play. Sound is OK. It is lightweight and easy to carry around.

Even though build finish is subpar, I would recommend this instrument.