Mendini 16-Inch MA-Purple Solid Wood Viola with Case, Bow, Rosin, Bridge and Strings

Bello strumento ottimo rapporto qualità-prezzo. Viola leggera, bel suono, originale, peccato le misure dichiarate siano errate. Infatti non è di cm 38 ma di cm 40.

very poor quality, one string arrived broken. This will not play a sound a decent sound. Very disappointed

It feels cheap, but that's not necessarily bad. It doesn't sound like a million dollar viola, and you shouldn't expect it to. It sounds like something that a pauper plays, and that's just fine. It's great for folk music. It sounds good playing reels and jigs. And the price is decent, so you can take it to the pub without being paranoid about wrecking it. If you want a serious viola, what are you doing buying a purple viola? If you want a fiddle, buy this! My only complaint: The bow is garbage. Don't let yourself think that you will do any serious playing with this bow. The viola has character, but the bow has nothing. Do yourself a favour and spend some money on a really good bow. But the viola is great.

Really good value for the price and it was delivered very quickly.

Let me preface this review by saying, this is written after a frustrating and enlightening few hours tuning my new instrument, on the same day I received it. Was ironically heading out the door when it was delivered. I purchased the purple finished viola. Visually, looks great. Not much different from the viola I had in elementary & middle school. Aside from being purple, if you're unsure about color options, you'll fit right in with one of the wood vanish colors. I haven't played much since I dropped the viola. [idiom] Saw this was on sale, I have amazon prime so the price was probably better than what non prime members pay. For under 100 bucks I was pretty enticed, so I went ahead and bought one. A non-musically trained person might take one look at the bow and decide that the piece is crap. Yes and no. This is not as high quality as a 500 - 1000 or so instrument. There can be no debating that. But even with a high end instrument, (especially if it is shipped) your bow WILL have some loose hairs. Just cut them back at the tips carefully, this is normal. Not an indication of defect or poor quality. That said, as far as my semi-amateur eyes can tell, this is just as good. And it's great for beginners, BECAUSE BEGINNERS TEND TO WRECK THEIR INSTRUMENT IN ONE WAY OR ANOTHER. Not true of everyone, but a slightly lower tier instrument is in my opinion a better investment especially for beginners. If it gets destroyed, or it's used for 2 years and abandoned. That's several hundred dollars "saved." As far as the tuning. I'VE NOTICED A LOT OF NEGATIVE REVIEWS. Mostly around the change of seasons. I'm assuming most of these reviews come from north america. Thing is, when the humidity changes, (it gets cold outside and thus people run their heaters) it changes the moisture levels of the wood in the instrument. It is entirely possible that some people received an instrument that didn't meet quality standards for one reason or another... But this seems unlikely, given the volume of negative reviews. It seems that these people didn't know how or had little patience in tuning their instrument. I spent at leas 2 hours tuning mine, not even fine tuning pray mind. Towards the end I was getting frustrated, and was tempted to call the piece crap and send it back. Bit more time and research led to better awareness and a nearly perfect pitch. Based on my impressions, I'd recommend this to any beginner or aspiring musician. It's a very solid entry level instrument, but tuning and care lead this to be a FINE ART. Something most people seem not to have patience for. I'll update this review in a few months should any of my feelings change significantly, else some material defect becomes apparent. I WOULD RECOMMEND however, a bit of time spent on YouTube and the internet researching the instrument. This is NOT A TOY and should respected. Like I said, string instruments are a fine art, the internet has lifetimes of experience and free information. Use it. Learn. Grow.