Re: epiphone mandobird?
The mandobird is kind of an oddity. You have many good options in the price range of a mandobird that would be better.
Do a search on MF and see what you come up with. I saw something like a half dozen acoustics in the same price range. None of those are going to win any awards for tone but they are all decent brands and plenty good enough to learn on. In fact you'll be a ways into your playing before you fundamentally need to upgrade. If you stick with it, you'll probably get the "itch" to upgrade long before you actually need to. And if you decide mando isn't for you - at least you haven't invested a LOT of cash.
Better yet, if you have a good shop close by, swing by an see what they have. I'm a big fan of playing something for real before you buy it. I'm not sure I could buy an instrument without trying it first. Even if you never played mando before you could explain that to the sales guy and he'll probably play it for you so you can get a sense of the sound of different ones, and also make sure there's no fret buzz or other problems.
Good luck.
Charlie
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