Harley Benton HBO-600NT

So… i have had my share of expensive and midrange steel string acoustics and had to conclude that acoustics would never become my thing. Always trouble with hard strings, stupid bridges that was unable to intonate, impossible truss rods, too high string action…. You know what i mean….
But for this price i was prepared to try it.
First of all it pretty nice to look at, it is built ok, without impressing, but the factory strings was a waste of natural ressources. .
New strings, a slight adjusment on the truss rod and this thing plays its heart out. The action is spot on, the intonation is spot on, the weight is spot on and the tuners are actually not as bad as i feared… The craftsmanship is absolutely accepted as well as the tuners.
But the round back shape makes it extremely difficult to sit with the guitar.
The fretboard was extremely dry, but it still played very well. Easy fixed though…
The acoustic tone is very nice and clear, but if something should be opgraded it wound be the electronics. The amplification of the built in preamp is very low but it sounds ok…. Nothing fantastic but enough for home play. In the studio the acoustic tone is absolutely acceptable, but dont use the preamp….

With thin strings and a very light adjustment this cheap guitar definately has taken my heart.
All i need to do now is to polish the frets which are very rough, and sand a little on the rough wood a few places. Then we are good to go live…. Later i might upgrade the tuners.
If i miss something it should be a a tuner in the preamp section.

Giant recommandation for this absurd low price….
The four stars are for the parameters listed and i have not taken the price into consideration !!

Excellent balance between quality and price ......BUT....
it has an ergonomic design problem.
It can not ''fit'' at your body and stay stand because of the curve of it's back.It slips away when you leave your left hand from the neck because of the right hand's weight and the curve of the synthetic back which touch your leg when you sit. One solution is the strap belt i guess....this is the main con of the instrument (i am not sure if it happens to all synthetic back type guitars, like ovation) .
The main pros is the amazing work of the neck and the perfect action for this cheap guitar.

I expected to have to do some work when I ordered this guitar and I wasn't wrong. The fret ends are really sharp. The fretboard is dry as a bone. Needs a new set of strings. So off with the strings, use my fret end file to sort the ends out. Give the frets a good polish. Oil the fret board and install a new set of stings. You then have a great guitar for not a lot of cash. Do not buy and expect to be great without some work. Once you have done it, it's a good cheap guitar.
An update: I decided to replace the preamp with one featuring a tuner as well. The one I found was about 1CM wider so not much work to change and fits reasonably well but not designed for the fitting it is in. However when I came to fit an new set of strings the E machine head would not come up to tune it keeps slipping. I changed it for the D string but it is failing with that tension too so I will have to replace the machine heads. Not very good as this is only the third set of strings.