Luna Honu Soprano Ukulele Review – A Sea Turtle-Inspired Soprano!

Part of Luna’s Soprano Series, their Honu Soprano Ukulele proves a very popular model among beginners and experienced players looking to add an affordable uke to their collection – there’s a reason it features in our article on the best soprano ukuleles on the market! Let’s check out why players have fallen in love with it…

Body & Neck

As so many budget ukuleles prove these days, you don’t need to spend much at all to end up with an instrument that looks and feels more than the price tag suggests. The Honu is one of these. It features a full-size soprano body, with a total length of 21”. The non-cutaway body is made entirely from mahogany and is quite simple in its design, although still boasts the classic Luna touch. In Hawaiian, the word ‘honu’ refers to a species of green sea turtle, so it’s no coincidence that the soundhole rosette features a ‘tattooed’ (i.e. laser-etched) Hawaiian turtle decoration – a clever design. The Honu features a smooth, satin-finished mahogany neck that offers great comfort for smaller hands, with a C-shape and a nut width of around 1.3”. There’s also a rosewood fretboard and 12 frets, marked with cool mother-of-pearl shark tooth inlays. For under $100, this uke feels exceptionally well-made!

Hardware

With no electronics, the Honu isn’t exactly swimming in features, but it does come with a basic nylon gig bag (with convenient backpack straps, for easy transportation), a pitch pipe to tune the uke, and a helpful chord chart – all great for beginners. Elsewhere, the Luna-branded headstock is fitted with a set of open-geared chrome tuners with pearloid tuning keys – again, for such an affordable guitar, these are pretty good and do a fine job of holding your tuning after the strings have settled. There’s also a rosewood bridge and a set of Aquila strings, while the nut and saddle are both made from graphite. Simple, but effective.

Sound

While some soprano ukes can be a little lackluster in sound – or a little too trebly – the Honu actually has a nicely rounded tone with a rich warmth, thanks to the all-mahogany construction. It’s certainly not the loudest soprano uke that we’ve reviewed, but for practice and small performances it does the job https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5M8CWJvjzgU

Conclusion

Having seen so many good-quality ukuleles from Luna, it wasn’t exactly a surprise to see the Honu perform well. Despite the turtle rosette, it’s not as striking in appearance as some of the other ‘tattooed’ ukes in their range. However, with a good build, a rich tone, some decent features, and a very wallet-friendly price, it’s genuinely hard to criticize this soprano uke. Luna, consider us impressed (once again)! For more info about the Luna Honu Soprano Ukulele, click here. For more Best Soprano Ukulele you might like, click here.