I bought it for fun because I always wanted to have a mandolin (or an Irish bouzouki which was too expensive..) and I hadn't too much of professional demands towards such an instrument. So I decided to go for a cheaper one and ended up with the Harley Benton HBMA-50 and was surprised when I got it. The overall quality was really great (for the price!) and there was nothing to complain about. No sharp frets, no rattling stuff - really usable cheap mandolin. If it weren't for the strings. Those delivered on the instrument were black. I mean really black. The wounded and the plain ones. Incredible how old they must have been.
I ordered new ones and 'Hello World' there was this typical mandolin sound. Bright, small, shimmering. Wonderful. Okay, it's missing the definition and fine treble of more expensive instruments. It sounds a little bit 'rough' if you want to say so. But for an instrument I bought just for fun from time to time or record a melody it's perfectly fine. If you want to learn mandolin seriously I recommend buying something 'better' (and I mean better, not just more expensive) for everyone else or experimenting it's a wonderful chance of gambling around with a mandolin.