Piano World Home Page Forums Our Most Popular Forums Digital Pianos - Electronic Pianos - Synths & Keyboards HELP_Is a good buy for Roland F110 (used 1yr old) $800??

Hi all, I am new here, and wish to get some advise for buying a digital piano.

I was playing keyboard for four years when I was little, and now would like to get back to it, but with digital piano. Mainly just for fun.

One of my friends is going to sell her 1 yr old Roland F110, asking for $800. I've been reading a few reviews, and the main negative seems to be the action of the keyboard. I was just wondering,

(1) Is this important for a beginner like me?
(2) Is $800 a reasonable price?
(3) what's the risk to buy used one? warranty? condition? ...

Also, for my situation, any other recommendations? My budget is around $2000 for new one.

Many thanks in advance!

that sounds like a fair price. It's not a steal. I think that was a 1200 piano new - maybe 1000 on special. Just guessing. I think that has the same action as the FP4 or FP2 - I had an FP2 and really liked the action.

That is a reasonable depreciation for a current model DP. The action in the F110 is the same as in the RP101 and RP201, 2 of Roland's most popular models. It is the lowest level of Roland's current actions, but of good quality and highly reliable. IMO, the action is on the light side, but good for many purposes.

When the F110 was introduced, it's street price was $1500 and not long after dropped to $1250, the lowest for a Roland console for some time.

The rumor is that a replacement model or upgrade will show up in the next 3-4 months, January at the latest. Because of that, you may start to see more available new or open-box in the $1000-$1200 price range.

The piano's warranty is one of it's biggest selling points...5 years, in-home. However, my belief is that warranty it to the first owner and not transferable. Roland Warranty details

Considering how strong Roland's warranty is for new, it shows incredible confidence in their products. FWIW, I've not seen or heard of any issues with the F110's.

If you can spend $2K then there are MANY options open to you. First are you going to play "Piano" or "Keyboard"? A piano is a very specialized type of keyboard and it is defined by the type of key action.

THe F110 uses Roland's ""Alpha" key action which is (I think) not nearly ar nice are there non-alpha keys. But these light keys are sometime liked by people who play non-piano sounds. Some people even like non-weighted "syth action" keys. It depends on what you want to do.

With $2K to spend and if you like Roland and want their better not-alpha keys then you could buy an FP7-F.

Go to one of the big retail chain stores and bring headphones and play different pianos and make note of which key action is inside each. Then come back here and say which you liked and which you did not like and why and then people can give suggestions about what you might want.

Thank you very much all for your replies.

I would like to try to play "Piano". I strated to learn keyboard when I was 5, after got interested from pre-school. My parents were very supportive and got me yamaha 49-key keyboard (it cost them quite a lot, back two decades ago). Four years later, my music teacher suggested to either upgrade to 61-key keyboard or change to playing piano. For various reasons, I stopped the lesson afterwards, however, I always wish one day I could play piano.

As I am used to the sytn-key action, my technique was not good, that I feel struggly when I try to play acustic piano. However, I would like to start from scratch to improve my technique (not sure how easy would be, if mainly learning myself). Since the technology of DP is much advanced nowadays, and they are easy to maintain/move, more versatile, relatively cheap, thus I thought this could be a good start for me.

I put my budget at $2k mark, thought I could get a reasonable good one, may last longer (I may change my mind now,after reading more posts). You are right, I need to go the stores to try out and see what I feel like.