Cordoba 24T - good enough to be fixed with setup?

I played a Cordoba 24T at Guitar Center yesterday. I like almost everything about this budget uke: the weight (light, especially for a laminate), the neck (1.5 inch nut and pretty thin profile), the sound (I'm a cedar fan, I like the softness of the tone), and the overall look of it.

But I generally don't trust ukes that are that cheap. (two hundred bucks!)

I imagine that some $200 ukes can have their intonation improved with a good setup, and become a bit more "high-end" if you're willing to put money into them. But I also know from experience that a lot of cheap ones are just badly intonated in a way that can't be remedied, or have necks made from bad wood that will bow (like an Oscar Schmidt that I used to have).

Does anybody know what the deal is with the Cordoba 24 line? Are they factory ukes that - if you overall like them - are worth putting money into?

Or are they type of factory ukes that are bound to have major issues no matter what?

I have a Cordoba 20TM - cost me under $150. Sold top, laminate body (although the spec sheet at the time said solid wood and Made in Portugal, neither was true.)

Truthfully? It has never needed any setup since it came out of the box. I was very pleasantly surprised. Especialy when I compared it to a uke at Guitar Center labeled Cordoba 20TM, that was a very different instrument,

Ahem... I meant to say that the Cordoba 20TM at my local Guitar center was badly in need of setup, had some intonation issues, and had a completely different shapes tuning head than the one I had my local music store order for me. Plus the one from the local shop came with a decent gig bag (now an option, I fear) while the folks at Guitar Center couldn't find the one that was supposed to come with the model in the showroom.

That being said, nothing that they had in the showroom (Cordoba, Mitchell, Fender) were worth trying to play, back when I was a real newbie; and I was comparing them to an old 1050 birch plywood Harmony soprano, my first ukulele.

I'm sure that there are Guitar Centers out there that have knowledgeable people, and care for and about their instruments - even those that they don't themselves play- but I didn't meet any of those people at the Albany, NY GC in 2011.

My opinion? Cordoba makes Good instruments. Find the best on-line price you can, and find a local music store, as I did, that will match or beat the on-line price, and order one for you with the agreement that if you don't like how it plays/sounds when it comes in, you don't have to purchase it.

My local music shop has a 24T, and every time I pick it up to play, I think to myself “Would this be a smart buy??” because it sounds good and plays really nice. I don’t have enough experience to know whether or not a proper setup will do much to improve this uke as it seems to come stock pretty well setup, but I think if you buy it, the $199 price tag is the absolute highest I’d go for this uke.

I had a Cordoba 20TM-CE that I ended up giving to my granddaughter. No intonation or setup issues. Got it for $125 used...great value. Sounded like ukes costing much more. It seemed to like mellow strings. It was my "surrogate blues guitar", so I used a wound low g and wound c. Aquila's sounded very harsh on it to my ears. Pickup worked well. I used some polish to produce a lovely deep, low gloss which was richer looking than the factory satin finish. I thought it also relatively light. I had always planned on installing a bone nut and nicer geared tuning machines.