Piano World Home Page Forums Our Most Popular Forums Digital Pianos - Electronic Pianos - Synths & Keyboards Best portable digital piano/keyboard for under £500?

Hi all, I know it may be a bit trickier soon as I'm from England, but if you know or can work out roughly what £500 is in USD then hopefully you'll be able to help.

I'd like a little portable piano with a decent piano sound and fairly good touch. Something like a Yamaha P-series or whatever the Kawai equivalent is etc.

If you own a portable keyboard/piano that you think is pretty good, let me know what model!

Thanks.

Will

I'm not sure what prices are in the UK but I would guess you can get the Casio PX-150 for around that range. The other strong contender on that end is the Yamaha P105.

I think your choices are between the Yamaha P105 and the Casio PX150. I have a PX330 - previous keybed but more bells and whistles, and personally I prefer its action to that of the P105.
There will also be some Korg option SP-280 (?) but I've never played one of those.

Yes, I did have a look at the P-105 on the Internet - it did seem like the best I could get for my money. Sounded nice too.

I currently have a Clavinova CVP-208 (aswell as my acoustic Kawai) and it's just way too big to lug around with me - Clavinovas weren't designed to be portable anyway!

A prime example: we're currently doing Grease as our school production (I'm on keys) and I'm having to borrow a keyboard from someone else, a rather nice one actually. It's a Roland Phantom G8 if I'm correct.

If I had my own keyboard I'd be able to bring that into school and use that instead! I'm sure like most pianists, you'd agree that we'd all rather play on our own instruments that we're familiar with than ones we're not.

Thanks for the help guys.

Take a good look at a PX-150.

You have enough for it plus a good hunk of the tax.

I have a Yamaha P85, which is the older P105 (not-as-good-sounds) but I believe uses the same GHS action.

It's ~25 pounds, so if you can lug that and a stand around, you'll be fine. I think the sounds and action are acceptable; it's certainly better than some of the neglected upright pianos I've played.

It's ~$450 USD, can probably be had for $400 USD.

My p105 arrived today. It's very expressive and for some reason the action feels a lot nicer and stiffer compared to the ghs of the dgx 640.

I would recommend it. It's light. It looks good. And yamaha actions to me are solid.

I'm impressed with everything except the sound but I'm picky, and spoilt by galaxy software so go figure.


I've read only good things about casio as well, but if the action is really stiffer than the yamaha, I would imagine it will cause fatigue quickly.

Overall I'm very happy with my purchase.

Light in terms of keyboard weight..

I for one think the action is a bit stiff. Maybe it needs to loosen up a bit.

But again the keyboard has very good dynamic control .

Excellent. Thank you for all your wonderful comments - it sounds like the Yamaha P-105 is the way to go!

I should mention Dynamic control on the DGX 640 wasn't good for me at all..

Maybe the DGX 650 will fair better?

Good luck with your sale. If you are in a position to do so, ensure u try out the contenders before u buy and trust you ears and you hands.
Everything is subjective.

Options are Yamaha p105
Korg SP280 (close enough in price I think)
Casio PX150
Korg sp170s (the cheapest)

I should mention from what I've read Korg may have some Quality control issues. So make sure your store honours their warrenty

cheers