Choosing a piano or keyboard can be a massive headache as the amount of options is absolutely insane. Ranging from a piano apps available for tablets, to small keyboards costing around $100, to full-blown grand pianos and digital grand pianos in the thousands-of-dollars range, the differences aren’t always obvious, especially to those that are just starting out with the instrument.

Below I go into different types of pianos and keyboards: who they are appropriate for, what beginners should look for, what to purchase, and differences between digital and acoustic pianos. Lastly, I’ll share a little bit of detail about why you might want to spend few thousand extra on a piano when you can spend less.

Types of pianos and keyboards

Your existing tablet or smartphone

Starting from the most basic, you can have an app on your tablet that will function as a piano. This seems ridiculous, but if you just want to bang out a melody with 1-2 fingers while sitting on your couch, it’s not as unreasonable as it sounds, and while not good enough for lessons some people do a lot more with apps like that by combining different sounds and actually making decent music recordings. Anyways, on to more serious options.

Portable keyboards for toddlers and occasional fun

Small Keyboards

These generally come with touch sensitive keys and not weighted, hammer-action keys. This means that when you push a key, it plays a sound no matter how hard you hit it, and how hard you have to hit they key for it to activate is completely different from a real piano. Think a spring under each key rather than a mechanically operated key such as one in a real piano.
 

Small keyboards are some of the best starter instruments for young children or leisure fun for anyone older; as well as learning some basic songs, melodies and rhythm patterns.

These are really good for introducing your kids to piano prior to their first piano lesson as the keys are almost always smaller than on a real piano, and though they don’t quite feel or act as real piano keys do, they work pretty well, and often come with other options such as the ability to switch through many different instruments, have a background accompaniment going on, automatic chords when you push on one button (if you’re interested in this, one example is a feature called “Casio Chords” on some Casio keyboards for example), and some even come with a microphone so you can sample and record a sound to play back for extra fun!

However these small keyboards can go up in price significantly even costing as much as $5,000 for stage keyboards with a whole slew of features that are beyond the scope of this article. Generally, if you are reading this, you wouldn’t want to buy anything more expensive than about $1,000 from this category as there are plenty of great options below this price point in the areas of $70 – $600.  Here are a couple that I would have tons of fun with even now:

Yamaha 61 key: https://amzn.to/3kewJ2G

Casio 76 Key: https://amzn.to/359arZD

For kids or a self-taught beginner that is not sure if they want to spend more than $150; I’d suggest any of the choices here. None of the ones linked here come even close to the Yamaha and Casio listed above, but are reasonable starter keyboards/toys to purchase, though I’d recommend the bonus entry on that list for a cheap but great starter small, portable keyboard that you can even use for lessons!

Full sized keyboards for beginners and intermediate lessons

Full size keyboards (88 keys)

These basically look like much longer versions of the above listed keyboards, and their keys will often look much more professional than on the smaller versions. Usually they are full sized keys, or at least not as small as the shorter keyboards, and you will start seeing some with weighted, hammer-action keys in this category. This is great news! As this is generally the minimum requirement any piano teacher would recommend to even a semi-serious student. However, as you will likely start using stands for these, you will notice they will wobble as you play on them. A LOT. You could mitigate this by placing it on a table rather than a stand, but chances are you won’t be comfortable playing like this.

These really only get good around the $1000 mark. Do not fall for things like: https://amzn.to/3lRA5ce  There is a really good chance that you will regret this decision in a not too distant future, for many reasons.

For students that want to get the feel of a real piano,  have the versatility of a keyboard, but also be able to use it for serious song creation, a good choice would be something like this: https://amzn.to/3j53EoQ

If you just want a keyboard to feel like a real piano, sound good, and have the versatility of a keyboard, one of the best choices you could make would be: https://amzn.to/3l6Spht.

This Yamaha keyboard actually has a pretty stable stand, among with a host of fun features. You are able to take it off the stand and keep it off for convenience if you want to play on your bed or your dining table and it has a ton of fun features to experiment with that someone on a real piano can’t ever dream of playing around with.

Acoustic Pianos for the real piano sound and feel

Acoustic A.K.A. Real pianos

Most people have seen a real piano at some point of their lives, these are entirely mechanical, i.e. nothing to plug into the socket. These have a hammer and a string for each key of the piano – 88 in total. These come in 2 shapes with minor variations, the upright piano where the strings are lined up vertically from the bottom of the piano to the top and the grand piano, where the strings are lined up horizontally from the keys to the back of the piano.

If you are looking to have a good quality piano sound, the feel of a real piano, and the look of a real piano in your home to match your décor, it is difficult to do better than a real piano (upright or grand). With all sorts of brands on the market at all sorts of prices, you are generally paying a lot more for these than full sized keyboards, as there is a considerable amount of work and materials that is put into the creation of each piano. The sound is subjective, but of course as it is with most things in life, the more expensive ones usually have a good reason for being more expensive. When it comes to acoustic pianos, that reason is usually higher quality materials, and higher quality sound, built by a well known brand with a better reliability – less tuning involved. Some of the more premium brands include Yamaha, Steinway & Sons, Kawai, Bechstein, and more.

As with all things on this list, there are pros and cons to acoustic pianos. The pros being that you get a good quality piano feel, sound, beauty, and no reliance on the grid so you can even play if the power goes out!

Important cons to consider: If you move the piano, you will likely have to get it tuned. If you have it in a drafty place or a spot in your home where the temperature greatly changes with the seasons, such as a cottage or a sunroom, you will also have to tune it, and rather often at that.

If your kids bang the keys a lot, you will need to tune it, or even have the tuner make minor repairs to the mechanisms on the keys. A flood or a leaky window if your piano is by a window in the basement, can spell disaster and even end of life in the worst case scenario for your investment even if it is just the base of the piano that gets wet. In other words, as a real instrument, it needs maintenance, and proper care in order for it to sound as beautiful as the day you bought it.

You might say – gee, I don’t want to maintain an instrument and I hate the concept of an ugly little keyboard, I want a beautiful real piano without the hassle that comes with it!

Well this is where Digital Pianos come in to save the day.

Digital Pianos for the real piano sound and feel with keyboard functions

When people read the phrase Digital piano, they often imagine something like the 88-key full size keyboards, and while they are similar, digital pianos go above and beyond to emulate the sound, feel, look, and the harmony of a real acoustic piano.

There are really beautiful digital pianos that look almost identical to upright and baby grand pianos, with a very high amount of work gone into development to make it feel, sound, and look like a real piano, while being packed full of extra features of course to make use of the digital platform.

Digital pianos cost anywhere from $1,000 to $10,000 but you can always find something more expensive. You cannot compare purchasing a $5,000 acoustic piano to a high quality digital piano for a similar price.

You are getting the performance of a real piano without the worries of needing to tune it.

You are getting a whole lot of features present in many keyboards that are worth their money such as MIDI compatibility, audio pass-through ability, headphone connectivity (goes without saying at this point), hundreds of sounds at your disposal, connectivity to your devices for extra fine tuning of the instrument, as well as educational apps, and even voice changing apps if you would like to plug in a microphone and sing with a band backing you up, all hiding inside your digital piano and tablet or smartphone.

Some come with even more features such as the piano roll light ups you can see in some YouTube videos when somebody plays the keyboard as the notes fall into the keys that are to be played. These features can even be extended on (just like with a high quality keyboard) through the use of computer connectivity and additional software to really push the limits of what your instrument can do. And with weighted, hammer-action keys that respond just like a real piano does, you have the extra freedom of playing with emotion, rather than just having sound come out or not (like in most keyboards).

An important note about hammer-action keys on keyboards: they are often simulated, or partly simulated, as in, close to the real thing, but not perfect. On a high quality digital piano however, an experienced pianist will struggle to tell the difference between the hammer-action keys on your digital and a compared acoustic piano. So even if at first glance it may seem that both, full sized keyboards and digital pianos should simulate the feel of a real piano equally, that is absolutely not the case, and it varies from one piano to the next as well, even when comparing digital pianos.

For the above reason, my go to recommendation for digital pianos is always the Yamaha Clavinova series. You simply cannot go wrong with purchasing a Clavinova, especially if you are looking into their higher end model numbers.

The CLP models are a really good all-around choice and are the best if you want your piano to look just like a real piano while providing all other benefits and features listed above. Of course I would suggest the CLP-785 or 685 for their superior sound and extra features, but you can go with any of the cheaper models from the series and you absolutely will not be disappointed. What ever digital piano you go for – make sure it has at least a 2.1 sound system – as in 2 speakers and a sub-woofer (usually located underneath the unit).

For those that like high tech and want to control their piano only with their smart device the CSP-150 is a great choice, but keep in mind that it doesn’t support ALL devices. You can find a list of which devices it supports by choosing your operating system on this page here.

And if you REALLY have a lot of money burning a hole in your pocket and you MUST have the most functions or constantly have a band or a singer coming over to your house, you can splurge on a CVP series. These have the most functions, the most buttons, the biggest screen and the most freedom to do anything you like. if you think the CLP/CSP series just won’t cut it for what you want to do, the CVP series surely would.

Quality budget digital pianos.

Let’s say you don’t want to spend over $3,000 on a piano but really want a quality digital piano, and are willing to compromise on style for function, what is the best you can do? Roland offers a great RP-501 digital piano that gives you a surprising amount of functions for the price point of about $2,500. Sure the stand is a little shakier, and it doesn’t look as nice as a more expensive Yamaha but it sounds very nice, feels very nice, has Bluetooth connectivity unlike some of the more expensive Yamahas; and you can use tons of different apps with it for customization.

If you want to stick to Yamahas you can definitely find a lower model number CLP series if you shop around, and even purchasing a used older one would be a great purchase assuming it is not damaged and works properly. For comparison, I have an older Yamaha CLP-150 from 2002 and it still sounds as wonderful to this day as the day I got it! And after playing on many peoples pianos, grand pianos, digital pianos, and keyboards, I am still very happy with my old CLP-150 and would pick it over a grand piano any and every time.

I wouldn’t recommend going with any other brands as they simply don’t put as much work into their digital pianos as what Roland or Yamaha would. And even the Yamaha has the Arius series which is made in a different factory, with lower quality materials, with yesteryears technology to bring you a relatively cheap digital piano. Unless this is a child’s first piano I wouldn’t suggest you buy an Arius. Even in that case, just buy the cheapest CLP you can instead! As you just might regret your decision in the far future when deciding you want to upgrade from an Arius.

Only you can decide what is best for you with your budget, space, and preferences. I just want to make clear that buying a quality digital piano will last you a lifetime (or more), will look good, and is generally a better investment than anything else on this list as you’ll only need to make it once. And of course to make the most informed decision do not forget to look at reviews and YouTube demonstrations of different models that you are interested in!