Our band's bassist is a short girl with smaller hands and so she's always played short-scale basses. We have some songs where a 5 string would be handy but have never found anything other than super-expensive custom models that would be short enough for her to play. She has an upgraded Ibanex GSRM20 (the 4 string model) so when we spotted this, it was a great addition to the line-up.
As you might expect, this is not going to be the absolute best option for a 5 string sound. The 28.7" scale is not going to offer a great deal of tension for long scale 5 strings and as expected the heavy B string is a little loose and needs quite a bit of set up with the saddles to even handle a note without flopping out of the grooves. Still with some time and patience and some changes to the action and set up, you can get a decent low end bloom out of this. As with the other Ibanez basses and most lower-end basses, you can get a monumental improvement with some new pickups and a few hardware upgrades.
So if you're expecting it to rival a full-size 5 string bass from an expensive range - forget it - but if you are a small player, with smaller hands, or just like playing fast, guitar like runs on bass, this is one of the only realistic options out there. I'd recommend changing the strings immediately, and a pickup and bridge upgrade make a big difference to everything. Even after that it's still cheaper than a custom made short-scale 5 string.
Highly recommended and like most Ibanez guitars and basses - far better than you'd expect for the low price.
