I bought a Kala baritone uke with cedar top and acacia sides because i liked the looks of it and i thought that it would be nice to have a very portable instrument that i could tune and play like Chimera (without the high 5th string drone). I did play it that way for a short while, but then began to experiment with guitar-like tunings.
The usual baritone tuning — DGBE, like the first four strings of a guitar — never appealed to me, but the idea of tuning it like the middle four strings of a guitar did appeal. The fingering of most chords would be very similar to that of a guitar, and in addition, there would be strings that could be used for alternating-bass fingerstyle onall of the common chords. So i tuned it ADGB and began learning to play many of my guitar repertoire songs.
It’s been an appealing experiment. The small size is a big draw, its tone is excellent, and as expected, the fingering is very similar to guitar. I’ve found two relatively minor deficiencies: the D chord is modal, having no third (though it sounds okay for most of the folk songs i’ve tried it on), and the G chord doesn’t have much of a bass note (i alternate between the 2nd and 3rd strings on its finger pattern).
Whether i’ll keep it in the long run is still open. Note that it hasn’t been given a name (yet?).