Lindo Slim ORG-SL SE Electro Acoustic Guitar with Preamp LCD Tuner & Padded Case

Never posted an online review before but I do use them, so its time I contributed!Amateur luthier's view: The guitar is generally well made. There are no laqueur runs, no glue runs around the lining. Some internal roughness on the internal sides but not significant (or generally visible). Standard X-braced soundboard. Both body and neck have plastic binding, the neck with fret markers of course, and striking abalone purfling on the sound board (including around the hole). The 'lightning' inlay on the fingerboard is great, and the zigzag positions are meaningful as they are positioned at the standard frets that are usually marked with pearl dots (3,5,7,9).There are two things of note for potential buyers.1. The first is that the body is very shallow, rather like the f-hole electric guitars often favoured by jazz players. This inevitably results in a diminution of the richness of sound. The sound quality depends mainly on two critical factors, the quality of the sound board (usually spruce) and the size and construction of the body. Vibrations of the sound board create pressure waves in the 'box' which escape from the sound hole, and that is what you hear. I made a guitar some years ago (mahogany & spruce) based on plans of a Martin 000-16m which has a similar size body but which is about 3cm deeper. Compared with this guitar, the Lindo guitar has less richness of tone and less bass (which is not to say that it is poor, as it is not). This is not surprising, and you could say the same of the 000-16m when comparing it to a Martin D28. However I mainly wanted a guitar with a cutaway so I could get above the 14th fret and, more importantly, one which had a pickup; and I was seduced by the beauty of the guitar pictured on the amazon web site! In my opinion, if you want a guitar for unamplified performance then there are better options for £330. I personally don't think that the portability would be much affected by increasing the depth. If however you want to perform amplified, then the pickup/pre-amp is good and it is not an issue.2. The soundboard construction is very unusual in the particular case of the guitar delivered to me. Solid tops are constructed from two pieces of wood that have been created by cutting a single rectangle of wood into two 'leaves', rather like opening a book at the middle page, and hence known as 'book-matched'. This results in a soundboard that has mirror-image grain patterns around the centre line (i.e. either side of the sound hole). The picture on the web site indicates that this is indeed the case, as expected. However, in my case this is not true. The soundboard has an appearance as if made from a single piece of wood as the book-matching seems non-existant (like two pieces of wood from different parts of the tree having been picked up in the workshop). This is not a problem for the back (quarter-sawn zebra is very attractive, as any lion would tell you), but the soundboard looks very strange (see photo) as there is a very pronounced asymmetry in the grain pattern. The right hand side looks like a normal spruce top and the left hand side looks like the rather more attractive ash top of the guitar in the Amazon photo, and so looks a little bizarre. It is not a disaster, but is nonetheless rather disappointing having made my personal purchase decision on the basis that aesthetics would compensate for the shallow body. I've always told people NEVER buy a guitar without playing ('do as I say, not as I do' apparently...!); caveat emptor, the downside of online purchases.Guitarist view: The guitar feels well balanced, and has a very nice 'feel'. The finish is very high gloss more usual for an electric guitar than an acoustic, but in my view it works perfectly for this instrument. The upward sweep on the headstock shape visually reflects the cutout on the top bout which is a tasteful feature I think. It is set up correctly, has a lovely action (essential for finger pickers), and the intonation is spot on; the saddle has a compensated B-string slot which seems to have become the norm (though I don't understand why it has not always been so). It is a joy to play. The pickup/pre-amp impresses me (but I don't have much knowledge of this aspect of guitars). There's an XLR3 socket (as well as a standard jack) for those who fiddle with recorders and the 'presence' control adds a wonderful 'bite' to the sound which works great for punchy stuff like ragtime and olde worlde country blues. The soft case is the normal standard (i.e. OK for carrying but not for slapping) with a large zipped pocket above the bottom bout and a small zipped compartment over the headstock big enough for capo, strings, picks. A get-you-started thin jack-to-jack cable and a PP3 battery were included.All in all, a very nice guitar but a deeper body (and perhaps a stricter soundboard QC?) would make it perfect.P.S. Still a very strong smell of varnish after 2 days so some compulsory short-term solvent abuse when playing it; I keep wanting to play Grateful Dead songs even though I don't know any...

I was attracted by the unusual look of this guitar and decided to take the risk of ordering one without having tried it myself. I am very pleased with the look of this instrument and it does have some very nice features. The overall finish is pretty good, although the build of the guitar is not overly robust and I think a few corners have been cut construction-wise. Unfortunately there are problems when it comes to playing. The bridge is positioned slightly incorrectly which has resulted in the intonation being annoyingly sharp. Also, there are a couple of fret buzzes and the action at the nut end is painfully high. I could quite justifiably return the guitar to Lindo, but I like its quirky looks enough to fork out another hundred odd pounds for a professional fret-stoning and setup, which hopefully turn it into the guitar I hoped it would be! If you don't mind doing the same, then I can recommend this as a quirky and endearing guitar.

I bought this guitar because a shoulder injury has made playing a normal-width guitar painful, and this guitar is British-made which appealed to me. This is a narrow depth guitar and is therefore easier on my shoulder. When I first bought the guitar I had a few issues but Lindo took back the guitar and fixed everything and now it plays beautifully. Their after-sales service is first class and thank you Lloyd (technician) for a speedy response. I highly recommend them.

Fantastic item - lovely service. This has been dubbed our 'gift of the year' find. How could we not purchase one at such a fantastic price for such a quality item. It looks stunning! - which was all myself and my daughter (it's a gift for her husband) could say about it initially. We have been beaten over the head with the 'you cannot buy a guitar without playing it' rule; and this almost made us pass this opportunity to purchase when it came up in the black friday deals. After getting a friend round to 'road test' the quality of sound, we grew even bigger smiles. How lucky, to have found a guitar - after 4 yrs of searching - slim enough for my son-in-law to hold comfortably, but that looks and sounds as truly amazing as this does. I was going to wait to do the review until we were sure he was as happy with it as we felt he would be, but after hearing how it sounds, i feel no need to wait. i'm totally sure he will love it and my daughter is so proud that we found it, took the risk and it has more than paid off. What a totally beautifully stunning guitar in every way. Will be highly recommended by us, for sure - and i hope it brings you many more happy customers. Truly one of the best buys this year (and we've placed almost 100 orders on amazon alone). Well done Lindo, keep up the excellent work

I am sorry to say I cannot recommend this guitar, the action was set so high that for me it was virtually unplayable and difficult to tune, I had it in my hands for 10 to 15 minutes and I am by no means an expert but it was back in the box to be returned, looks good but fails to deliver . by the way I was using a digital tuner and it was struggling along with my ears