YAMAHAPSR-E383 Portable Keyboard for Beginners, 650 Authentic Instrument Voices and Touch-Sensitive Keys with 48-Note Polyphony, Includes 2 Online Lessons with Yamaha Music School Teacher

This is an incredible entry-level arrangers keyboard. Connecting it to a GarageBand or another favourite DAW brings a massive fun: find a drum loop, find or record an acapella and jam along. USB connection has bidirectional support for both MIDI and audio, which some pianos lack.The grand piano, bass, brass, guitars and strings are amazing. They sound right out of the box and are way ahead of any software sampler I've heard or used. There are also more obscure sounds that are very well designed such as flutes that come in a couple of modern flavours and a good Mellotron imitation. Organs sound good as well and while they're not configurable the choice of sounds is reasonable and the quality is superb. Even synth samples are well made. Although synth envelope is fixed, they're still usable, especially for bass and arpeggios.The instruments feel less bright and expressive than competitors' entry-level keyboards, which is likely intentional as they sit very well together in a mix, whereas other entry-level pianos are designed to be primarily played solo.This is especially obvious in electric pianos: beautiful sounds, but they all lack aggressive attack and designed to be used as a backing rather than solo. A complete opposite of Yamaha Reface CP sound.The grand piano has a smooth and romantic feel. Playing rhythmical forte notes and chords in a pop/EDM style doesn't really work on it and sounds blurry. There is a 'Bright Piano' instrument that has a crisper feel, but it's really designed to work in a mix and lacks low end and rich harmonies of the live grand piano. Playing a classical piece or an 80s soundtrack style a la David Grusin on the live grand piano sounds beautiful.Note that the default live grand piano is really the only piano sound that feels right played solo. There are a few more, but they all seem to be designed for arrangement parts.These limits on the grand piano and electric piano sounds feel intentional, as otherwise this keyboard would destroy the market of stage pianos - so good it sounds otherwise.The keys feel solid. It's a synthesizer style keyboard, and as such, using it as a first keyboard for learning piano might not be a great idea though: it's quite hard to achieve right pressure/velocity even with experience. Learning on a weighted or semi-weighted keyboard would be more enjoyable.Overall very happy with the keyboard. I've read reviews marketing it as an entry-level piano or a beginners piano, but it's not really a piano and isn't a good beginners keyboard if you're serious about learning piano. It excels as a keyboard for making arrangements, usable for playing some solo parts and is an unbeatable choice in this price, size and weight.

The Yamaha PSR-E383 is an excellent keyboard for beginners and hobbyists. It offers great sound quality, versatile features, and user-friendly controls at an affordable price. A fantastic value for the money!

Bought as a present. Daughter loves it. Fantastic sound and great functions

I bought this PSR-E373 to replace my previous keyboard which I've owned since 1994, a PSR-210. I think the PSR-£373 occupies a similar place in the range as the old PSR-210, a step above the beginner models with a few nice features, but not an advanced keyboard where the price goes up suddenly.Build quality of the new unit is fine - the keys have nice action although the black keys feel different from the white keys, and different from my old keyboard, although I appreciate my old one had 30 years of being "broken in".Sound quality is great, much improved on the 1990s model. There are loads of sounds and most of them sound really good. This is one of the main reasons I chose this keyboard, after watching some videos online. Likewise there are loads of rhythms and I'm enjoying playing with the combinations. The speakers are fine for home use but I don't think this would go loud enough to make a decent volume in a hall/church/club etc.My main gripe with this keyboard is cost-saving in the user interface. There are not many buttons which means many of the buttons "double up" in their functions, and lots of the functions are menu-driven. This means you can't see at a glance what mode you're in etc. It also means more button-pressing to change things. The older keyboards had more buttons, dedicated to their functions, and status LEDs near the buttons so you could easily see what was going on.For example, on my old PSR-210 there is a pair of buttons for [Tempo +] and [Tempo -] which can be pressed at any time to change the tempo. On the new PSR-E373 you have to press the [Tempo] button which then puts the screen in tempo adjustment mode, and then you have to press the generic [+] and [-] buttons. After a few seconds, it exits tempo adjustment mode. So it's a pain to gradually adjust the tempo throughout a piece.This type of design is repeated throughout the keyboard and makes it quite hard to adjust settings while you're playing (e.g. changing an instrument or rhythm, changing tempo, changing effects, etc). In this way it can be a little frustrating to play, especially as the buttons are small and not colour-coded like the older keyboards. They are laid out to look smart, not necessarily to be easily reachable/usable.One feature I do like is the USB port, which opens up lots of possibilities when making music. Firstly it can make the keyboard function as an external sound card, so the keyboard's speakers can play any sound from your computer. More interestingly (to me) it can act as a MIDI interface, which means you can play downloaded sheet music e.g. from MuseScore on the keyboard, and you can also capture your performances to sheet music.There are some features built into the keyboard for capturing your performances but I haven't tested them as I've gone straight in with MuseScore and a USB cable. There are also plenty of gimmicks, loads of demo tunes, some learning/tutorial modes etc that I haven't looked at.All in all, I think this is a decent keyboard and would be suitable for beginners to intermediate musicians at home. It is easy and enjoyable to play and capable of making a wide variety of sounds. It has some useful features for people who are interested in music technology, but is probably not really suitable for gigging or advanced musicians.

I am a total beginner at a keyboard, but the various sounds are fantastic, I wear two hearing aids, and I still have hearing difficulties, but these speakers are great for my condition, my only disappointment is that the mains lead is too short for my positioning of the stand, P. H

Works well, easy to set up.

This is actually a vey good Electric Piano, sounds great (bottom 3/4 keys not good & top 4/5 keys not good sounding) but inbetween are I think superb.

I bought to teach my daughter. I thought maybe it wouldn't be as appealing because its plain black but she loves it. The more colourful keyboards are just too basic IMO. This keyboard can take you up to intermediate level before you need something more advanced. It has really good sounds, songs. It also has a 2 track recorder which I wish was at least 4 tracks but it was less than £300 so I can't deduct a star for that. My main gripe is I wish the keys were full size. My daughter is 6 with small hands and noticed the difference between these keys and our piano straight away. Great value