"So Russell... what do you love about music?" Russell: "To begin with, everything ".
OMG, who doesn't love the last scene from "Almost Famous". haha. So anyway to begin with......, I am in no way, shape or form a mandolin player. I've played acoustic & electric guitar for several years and thought what the heck, lets branch out and get a mandolin. The very first acoustic guitar that I bought (in 1977) was a gorgeous dreadnought all blonde body, maple neck Ibanez Concord. Loved it. So when I saw the Ibanez Mandolin I trusted the brand and it was a no-brainer. The Mandolin. Its a crazy little instrument. I've only had it for 2 days, I looked up a chord chart and it is so foreign from guitar chords but I'm having fun with it which was the whole point of this purchase.
Anyway I digress.
My review of the actual instrument also includes looking at it from it's price point.
You get what you pay for, so I will say, it is a cheap mandolin, but that is not say that I do not like it.
The build quality - It's good (considering the price point).
I got the matte finish, which I really like. it may look a little cheap, but consider the price point.
The Neck.... The neck itself is good, no adjustments needed. If I wanted to be critical, the frets could use a little sanding, the edges are just a bit rough, but again, it is totally playable the way it is. I will probably use this as a practice instrument and experiment with sanding/filing the frets down and then if needed maybe re-crowning them too. The other thing which is totally foreign to me is having a floating bridge/saddle. The one main knock I have is that the bridge/saddle definitely needs work, it is not sitting nicely on the body. It will need some sanding and setup along with lowering the action of the strings. I haven't taken a good look at the nut, so I'm not sure if that will need some adjustment/filing. It doesn't sound too bad out of the box, a little dead, but I have new strings on order. Going to take the old strings off, sand and adjust the saddle/bridge to sit snug against the body and hopefully that should really improve the resonance. We'll see. I guess the long and short of it is, If you are looking for an inexpensive mandolin to start off with, I don't see how you can go wrong with this one. And it looks so damn cute sitting next to my guitars, it's like they just got a little brother. :)
*** 8/9/2021 Update***
So I sanded the bridge so it sits flush on the body and put a new set of D'addario strings on. The sound is better but I still need to work on the action, anything past the 12th fret and its dead. So I have some more work to do on it. The good thing is that I am having fun playing it.