Digital Piano for Beginners: A Good Keyboard Is Important

“You don’t need the best one right away!” When buying a beginner’s digital piano, you will hear this argument again and again. While you can save money on a lot of things, even an entry-level digital piano must be up to a certain standard: it should be an electric piano with a good keyboard – preferably the best keyboard you can get in your price range. But how can you tell the quality of a digital piano keyboard?

Playing the piano: Making music with passion

“…and then maybe it just sits in the corner!” Of course, it’s all about getting started in the first place. That’s right – you don’t even know if you’re going to stick with it: So why spend too much money right away? The idea is understandable and not wrong. Nevertheless, here are some basic considerations when buying an entry-level digital piano:

1. You will be able to resell a good instrument from a brand-name manufacturer close to the purchase price; a cheap no-name instrument will be difficult to resell.
2. You will always have to accept a loss of value, but with a good brand-name instrument, you will have the best conditions for point 3…
3. Don’t confuse a digital piano with other electronic products! An electric piano is not simply a useful object like an alarm clock. Playing the piano – that is, making music with your heart and soul – is first and foremost about the feel and joy of playing. And that is what an instrument with a high-quality keyboard and good piano sounds provides.

So why start with the cheapest quality? Fortunately, you don’t have to! There are many solutions and reasonable compromises in features and price. And just because you haven’t played the piano in six months doesn’t mean you’ve given up playing! Sometimes you need a little creative break so you can start again with fresh energy.

Which digital piano has the best keyboard?

More importantly, how much will you have to spend on it? Expensive digital pianos have better keyboards than entry-level electric pianos.

Portable pianos are a good choice. By reducing the cost of the case and stand, more money can be spent on the important features of piano sound and keyboard.

→ You can find a complete overview of the best electric pianos for beginners on our landing page at Thomann.

Electric pianos with good keyboards – Top 5

These electric pianos for beginners caught our attention in our tests mainly because of their good keyboards. They offer good sound and playing characteristics at an affordable price.

1. Roland FP-10

The smallest piano of the popular FP series benefits from the PHA-4 keyboard of the much more expensive FP-30X and FP-60X models. In the 500 Euro price range, Ivory Touch and let-off mechanism are only available on this piano.

2. Casio CDP-S110

The piano sound and speakers here are at entry-level, you’ll get the best experience using headphones. However, the hammer action keyboard plays smoothly – the best keyboard for well under 400 Euros. Also a tip as a compact piano controller in the home studio.

3. Kawai ES-120

A high-quality matte finish on the white and black keys ensures a pleasant feel and good grip on this all-round solid entry-level electric piano.

4. GEWA PP-3

A lively Steinway grand piano sound allows for expressive sound and dynamic play. Though the keyboard of the PP-3 is designed to be lightweight, it features hammer action and is easy to play. Take a look at the very affordable bundle offer including a matching stand.

5. Thomann DP-28 Plus

If you want a digital piano with extensive and modern features for less than 400 Euros, this is the price/performance winner. Although the keyboard has been optimized to keep the weight of the instrument as low as possible, the hammer action provides a pleasant counterweight when playing.

Buying a used digital piano with a good keyboard

Unlike acoustic pianos, digital pianos have shorter product cycles. This means that after a certain period, the current digital piano models will be replaced by a new series. Of course, you can expect the latest technology in the newest product line. However, it is not uncommon for certain features of the more expensive instruments in the previous series to be incorporated into the entry-level instruments in the new series. This leads to two conclusions:

1. Entry-level models benefit from the features of the more expensive predecessor instruments.
2. If you are looking to purchase a used digital piano, you should focus on the higher-end models.

In general, you can assume that more expensive models feature better keyboards. However, when buying second-hand, pay special attention to the condition of moving parts such as the keyboard and controls.

Home piano with many features for very little money: Be careful!

If your focus is solely on the number of features and the low price, you run the risk of making a bad purchase. The lower end of the market in particular deserves a lot of attention when buying a digital piano for beginners. However, you should be wary of no-name products at an extremely affordable price. These often reveal themselves as cheap sound chips and miserable keyboards built into a digital piano casing. You won’t enjoy these instruments for long, and reselling them is difficult.

If you don’t want to spend a lot of money on a beginner piano, be flexible, especially in terms of design. Digital pianos in a classic home piano design generally cost more than portable pianos with a comparably good keyboard. For as little as 500 Euros, you can get entry-level pianos that convince in the most important features of keyboard and piano sound. However, you should not expect a voluminous loudspeaker sound, as only small loudspeakers fit into the compact casing.

→ Find out more in the PIANOO.com buyers’ guides: Digital Pianos for under 500 Euros and Digital Pianos for under 1000 Euros.

Buying a Digital Piano for Beginners: Which keyboard?

This is difficult to judge without prior knowledge. After all, you’ll often find the most important features in advertisements for cheap products. Usually, the hammer action is the first point mentioned. And indeed, almost every digital piano today has one, but the differences in quality can be enormous. You should take a close look at the hammer action, especially on inexpensive pianos.

Touch sensitivity and 88 keys are standard on (almost) all beginner pianos. However, a keyboard that is suitable for learning how to play the piano should have these features:

1. Weighted piano keys: For the most authentic piano touch, you need weighted piano keys with a hammer action.
2. Hammer action: This is a complex action with balanced weights and moving hammers. Its purpose is simply to simulate the touch of a piano action.
3. Graded Weighting: The keyboard of acoustic pianos is weighted differently depending on the key range to provide a balanced playing feel. Manufacturers refer to this as a graded hammer action.

The first three points are a must if you want to learn to play the piano on a digital piano. The touch dynamics of beginner pianos can also be individually adjusted to the strength of the touch using a dynamic function (Touch Curve). This is especially important for beginners whose fingers may not yet be able to muster up the necessary strength.

Ivory Feel
In rare cases, beginner pianos offer a textured key surface. An Ivory Feel keyboard is not a must, but it is a nice feature that has a positive effect on the playing feel.

Let-off mechanism
Keyboards with a let-off mechanism are very rare on inexpensive entry-level instruments. This is a mechanical function that makes the touch response (especially in pianissimo) more precise.

How to recognize a good digital piano keyboard as a beginner

A good hammer action keyboard should give you a well-balanced playing feel. The keys should provide a piano touch that is as evenly as possible across the entire range. Basically, a keyboard should play tight and precise, but pay attention to these subtleties:

• Weighted hammers: Slowly move one or more keys up and down at the same time. Does it feel like a balanced seesaw, or does it feel like a spring is pulling the key up? The latter is not good. The keys should just follow your fingers.
• Mechanical noise: This is normal with a hammer action, but you shouldn’t be hearing any loud knocks. This is true both when you press it down and when the key snaps back into the rest position. The purely mechanical noises must be more or less the same for all keys. Under no circumstances should the keys rattle.
• Key movement: Move the keys sideways when at rest. There may be a little room – but do the keys have so much lateral play that they could bump into each other? Or can you even twist horizontally? A keyboard like that is pure junk!
• Key bounce: Watch the movement of the key when you suddenly release it from the depressed position! Once in the rest position, it may bounce briefly. The keys should not rattle.
• Key action: How does it feel to depress the keys? Does the key land in a controlled manner with a slight counter-pressure? Or do you feel that the key hits hard? If the latter is the case: Stay away from this piano!
• Accurate key position: Look at the front edge along the entire keyboard. Do all the keys make up an even surface? Are they all straight and parallel?

Which entry-level digital pianos have good keyboards?

You are on the safe side with the current brand products. Japanese manufacturers dominate this area: Casio, Kawai, Roland, and Yamaha. Kawai and Yamaha are the market leaders with decades of experience in traditional piano manufacturing. Even in the lower price ranges, you can expect these instruments to have keyboards of appropriate, good quality. This also applies to Casio and Roland, which use own-brand keyboards.

The German manufacturer GEWA is a newcomer in the digital piano sector but also offers high-quality keyboards. GEWA pianos feature keyboards from the Italian manufacturer Fatar.

Regarding low-budget pianos, we took a look at the Thomann music store and tested their own-brand DP-32 and DP-51 pianos. The keyboards of these instruments aren’t quite as good as those of the aforementioned brands, but they are of reasonable entry-level quality given their very affordable price. The Hemingway DP-701 MKII – also a Thomann brand – did not perform quite as well.

Yamaha’s entry-level portable pianos are also worth testing. Although there are no fancy features such as a let-off mechanism or Ivory Feel, the “Graded Hammer Compact” keyboard of the Yamaha P-145 and Yamaha P-225 is a solid option that has proven itself in many Yamaha instruments.

→ Take a look at our electric piano review, which recommends the best digital pianos for beginners of the year.

Semi-weighted keys vs. weighted hammer action

“Pianos for beginners” or “electric pianos for children” are often instruments with a semi-weighted keyboard. These instruments are recommended for absolute beginners who are more comfortable with a very easy-to-play keyboard when taking their first steps on the piano. If you want the most authentic piano touch possible, you need a digital piano with a graded weighted hammer action.

Useful links on this topic

Discussion on reddit – An acoustic or a digital piano for beginners?