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Last updated: 14 Feb 2022

Beginner Digital Pianos With Metronomes, Play Along Tracks, and More

Best Overall
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Alesis Recital 88-Key Digital Piano
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Runner-Up
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Donner DEP-10 Beginner Digital Piano
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Honorable Mention
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RockJam 88-Key Budget Keyboard For Beginners
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Also Consider
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Plixio’s Cheap Digital Electric Piano
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Camilla Haywood
By Camilla Haywood
Published 6:41 pm
Show contents
  • 1 Alesis Recital 88-Key Digital Piano
  • 2 Donner DEP-10 Beginner Digital Piano
  • 3 RockJam 88-Key Budget Keyboard For Beginners
  • 4 Plixio’s Cheap Digital Electric Piano
  • 5 Donner DEP-20 88-Key Beginner Piano
  • 6 Pyle’s Portable Digital Piano For Beginners
  • 7 Lagrima 88-Keys Digital Piano For Beginners
  • 8 Donner DDP-300 Digital Piano
  • 9 Best Choice Products 61-Key Cheap Keyboard

As a beginner, it’s not really realistic for you to get your hands on a grand piano – well, at least not until you’re filthy rich. Even that put aside, it’s always better to start with a digital piano if you’ve planning to buy one. Not only are they easy on the pockets but they also come with a couple of cool features like metronome, play along tracks, MIDI, USB/XLR inputs, and are also portable so you can easily take them to your music classes. In this article, we’ve compiled a list of the best digital pianos for beginners in 2021, as well as a detailed buying guide that’ll fill you in on everything you need to know about making a purchase that’s reliable and offers ample room for growth!

Best Digital Piano for Beginner

1

Alesis Recital 88-Key Digital Piano

– Best Overall
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THE SCOOP

The Alesis Recitation 88-Key Keyboard is an excellent beginner digital piano, offering fine sound, a durable build, and has a compact design. It comes with full-sized, semi-weighted keys and adjustable touch response to match your playing technique!

Moreover, you get 5 premium voices, reverb & chorus, and powerful 20-watt speakers. It also comes with Skoove, featuring in-depth piano courses online!

Pros
  • Offers adjustable touch response
  • It’s a full-sized piano with a good sound so even experienced musicians can benefit from it
  • It offers 5 realistic built-in voice notes; acoustic, electric, bass, organ, and synth
Cons
  • It does not come with a sustain pedal
2

Donner DEP-10 Beginner Digital Piano

– Runner-Up
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THE SCOOP

Equipped with 88 half-weighted hammer keys, this digital piano does an excellent job at simulating the feel of playing a real acoustic piano. It comes loaded with sounds of 8 instruments that gives you a whole lot of room for your creative freedom.

The Donner DEP-10 comes with a metronome with 4 types of beats, effect control for DSP/suspension, and recording mode for storing/playing/arranging the music. It has two built-in 25W speakers, an MP3 player, and an excellent design, giving you an unrivaled playing experience!

Pros
  • It comes with high quality, zinc alloy sustain pedal
  • Features 128 polyphony and 8 premium tones
Cons
  • A few customers have had complaints about keys not functioning properly and causing a hassle
3

RockJam 88-Key Budget Keyboard For Beginners

– Honorable Mention
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THE SCOOP

The best part about this keyboard is that you can buy it in different variations; 49-key, 54-key, 61-key, and 88-key! It has velocity-sensitive keys, closely replicating the feel of an actual piano, making this one a delight to play!

It comes with 24-watts stereo speakers, a headphone and USB input, and ten unique voices. It also comes with an aux input so you will not have to wander around looking for XLR-to-Aux input converters as it usually occurs!

Pros
  • Has 3 pedal inputs, USB input, and Aux Input/Output ports
  • Comes with keynote stickers, sheet music stand, and power supply
  • You receive free access to the Simply Piano application
Cons
  • It does not come with a sustain pedal
4

Plixio’s Cheap Digital Electric Piano

– Also Consider
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THE SCOOP

Plixio’s 61-key keyboard is lightweight and portable, making it a great first musical instrument! It features 100 rhythms, 60 demo songs, 40 tones, 8 percussions and volume or tempo control. Since it has a dual-power supply, you can customize the sounds and play along on the go!

It doesn’t come with a USB port but has an input for mic, enabling you to have the most fun-filled karaoke nights! The pack includes a music sheet stand, power adapter, and an aux cable.

Pros
  • It comes with a full 1-year warranty
  • It weighs less than nine pounds, making it super lightweight and its dimensions are 34” x 12” x 3.5”
  • Comes with a headphone jack for disturbance-free playing
Cons
  • 61 keys can limit you as a pianist but you can still play most songs
5

Donner DEP-20 88-Key Beginner Piano

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THE SCOOP

Built with adjustable touch response, this 88-key digital piano is an excellent full-sized budget piano you can get your hands on! It comes with a dual-tone mode that lets you combine two voices together, comes with over 200 types of tones, features a sustain pedal, and more!

It also offers a backlit LCD screen that clearly shows chord names, recording mode MIDI, and an mp3 player. The Donner DEP-20 comes with 25W amplifiers and is designed to offer an extraordinary learning and piano playing experience!

Pros
  • It offers 238 tones and 128 polyphonies
  • Includes a high-quality zinc alloy sustain pedal
  • It has a cool LCD display that let’s you know the chords you’re playing and more
Cons
  • The high piano notes sound kind of weak due to key action
6

Pyle’s Portable Digital Piano For Beginners

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THE SCOOP

This cool budget piano is available in two colors; pink and black. It weighs only 2 kilograms and is as portable as you can imagine! It’s a 61-key keyboard, comes with a record and playback mode, has an aux audio interface, and includes a USB power adapter.

It has an LCD screen that shows you what’s up, comes with a wired microphone, and an adjustable volume control to sing and play along to your liking! It’s the perfect digital piano to go for if you’re tight on the budget and looking for a fine one to begin with.

Pros
  • Includes a wired handheld microphone
  • Great for kids to get them familiar to a piano
  • It lets you connect and stream audio from external devices
Cons
  • You need to register the product after receiving and then you get the microphone
  • It’s a good choice but mainly for kids/children
7

Lagrima 88-Keys Digital Piano For Beginners

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THE SCOOP

This excellent digital piano by Lagrima is a full-sized, upright-designed choice and falls in the high-end range for beginner digital pianos. It costs around $300 (which is a bit much for a beginner piano), it’s an excellent choice to go for if you’re an experienced musician and sure that you’ll be growing out the lower-end budget pieces in no time.

With this bad boy, you get a 3-pedal system, LCD display, 80 demo songs, 960 tones, built-in stereo speakers, and a USB/MIDI terminal that lets you go an extra mile! It has metronome, split/touch function, and learning tools. We love it and so will you if you’ve got the budget for it!

Pros
  • It looks like an upright piano – a treat for the eyes
  • It has a DSP effect and a super real tone
  • Comes with an anti-pitch slide cover design
  • Has a dual-mode and comes with sustain/soft/sostenuto pedals
Cons
  • It’s expensive ($300)
8

Donner DDP-300 Digital Piano

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THE SCOOP

This one’s similar to the Lagrima’s digital piano but is heavier in the low end and lighter in the high end. It’s good for both home practice as well as concerts! It comes with a double keyboard setting that lets you section it, allowing you to explore and practice in new ways.

It comes with a 3-pedal system as well, has high-quality speakers, heavy bass, warm tone, three-dimensional surround sound, and more! Design-wise, it’s a sight to behold, made up of mahogany veneer with a sliding key cover.

Pros
  • It comes with a Bluetooth MIDI function
  • Has 10 preset authentic timbres and 128 polyphonies
  • It looks exquisite yet very simple
Cons
  • It’s a bit expensive
  • Keys can be a little too heavy for some
9

Best Choice Products 61-Key Cheap Keyboard

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THE SCOOP

Last but not least, this 61-key digital piano is a teacher’s heaven – comes with 3 teaching modes! You get lit up keys and instructions through an LCD display. It has a USB port that lets you plug in and play along to different tones or add harmonies to your music! Moreover, it offers good sound and, in our opinion, qualifies as a good budget keyboard for beginners.

Pros
  • Offers three learning modes; you get instructions through lit-up keys and LCD display
  • Comes with an H-style keyboard stand, music stand, padded stool, and more
  • It’s very loud and a cheap solution for practicing without a hassle
Cons
  • It’s a good starter piano does not have a sustain pedal

Best Digital Pianos for Beginners Buying Guide

Since you’ve now got your hands on a couple of excellent digital pianos for beginners that you can order anytime, it’s important that you know what exactly you’re looking for when buying one. This section will help you achieve the exact confidence you need to make that flawless purchase. Let’s start with the basics!

What Do You Get In A Digital Piano?

There are some advantages a digital piano has over the grand one, some of them are as follows, and more:

Portability

So, first of all, a digital piano is portable. You can take it anywhere you intend to with little-to-no effort. If you’re planning to grow as a musician and dreaming of playing live in front of an audience, you’ll need a digital piano by your side so you’re not clueless what to do at the very last minute. Since you’re probably a beginner, you’ll appreciate the convenience a digital piano will provide you – you can easily take it to your class every day!

Connectivity

A lot of digital pianos out there come with USB compatibility so you can connect it with all kinds of audio gear without a hassle! Similarly, there are digital pianos with MIDI that allow you to connect it to computers/recording gear. There are models that come up with the option to plug in memory cards and flash drives to play music from them as well as record and transfer. There’s really a lot of room and cool features to play around.

Recording Capability

The recording/playback feature is really cool when you’re learning and want to see how well you’ve been progressing. These aren’t world-class recordings but good enough for you to extract enough benefit from them.

Teaching/Learning Tools

The digital pianos nowadays come with LED lights that can explain different chord placements. This can be highly beneficial if you’re a teacher or you’ve got a small kid who wants to learn to play the piano. Makes things really simple!

Cost

Of course, the cost-benefit is unrivaled. You can get an 88-key piano within a very good budget. When you’re buying beginner pianos, you can get them for as low as $100!

What Things Should You Consider When Buying A Digital Piano?

Since you’re now on top of the primary benefits of a digital piano, here’s what you need to consider when buying one:

Experience/Skill Level

If you’re a music producer, playing for years, have your grip on a couple of instruments, your primary instrument is a piano, and you end up buying a beginner digital piano, that’s obviously going to do you no good – unless you’re looking for it specifically to engineer your craft in a specific way.

If we’re being real, an experienced music producer will never do such a thing unless they absolutely need it. However, a beginner can definitely end up spending thousands on an instrument only to later find out that he/she isn’t really interested in the instrument anymore. So, when buying a digital piano, you need to buy a relevant product that does not only match your level of expertise when it comes to playing but also gives you ample room to grow and to take a regret-free decision of backing out if you need to!

If you’re an absolute beginner, we’ll suggest that you start with a learner’s piano that’ll help you get a grip on the basics rather quickly.

Touch Response

So, the touch response refers to the action of your piano, determining how hard or how lightly you have to press the keys to get your desired sound. In other words, it refers to ‘the harder your press the keys, the louder is the sound’ and ‘the softer you press them, the quieter is the sound’. If you’re getting the same sound both ways, that’s just poor playing technique and the sound doesn’t really hit where it’s supposed to.

Sound Quality

Digital pianos have the sounds of actual grand pianos recorded against each key – so what you’re getting is actually a recorded sound. You need to make sure the sound you get closely mimics the sound of acoustic instruments – this generally happens when you have a digital piano with ample memory that can afford sounds with higher sample rates. The quality of the amplifier and speaker also greatly affects the sound you get.

Keys

The number of keys is important – 88 is the ideal number to go for but you can also make do with 64 keys, 61 keys, and even 54 in some scenarios.

Learning Tools

As we’ve explained above, digital pianos come with learning tools and whether you’re a teacher or a learner, you can extract good benefit out of this feature! So, when you’re buying a digital keyboard, don’t forget to understand the type of learning tools it comes with.

How Much Do Digital Pianos For Beginners Usually Cost?

The price for digital pianos for beginners usually starts at around $100 and goes as high as $200. More often than not, you can get an excellent 88-keys piece in the $100 - $150 range.

And if you’ve evolved from the beginner phase, it’s safe to say that only the sky is the limit when it comes to the price of musical instruments!

Best Digital Piano FAQ

Q: What can go wrong in a digital piano?

A: Well, to begin with, your power supply may become faulty. If there's an LCD screen on your piano, it may break. Some pianos have low-quality keys and they may start causing hiccups after a while. The last one is probably the most frustrating one but don't worry, there's no issue that your local music store can't fix.

Q: What sort of digital piano is closest to the acoustic?

A: A digital piano that's advertised for having a hammer action is the closest you can get to an acoustic piano. The conversation then narrows down on how closely the said digital piano imitates the hammer action to feel and sound exactly like an acoustic one!

Camilla Haywood
By Camilla Haywood
Within the city limits of NOLA, you may find Camilla hammering away on her 88, playing anything from old jazz to modern country music. Camilla's goal is to one day open a piano studio in New Orleans where she can teach the black and whites and other common jazz instruments to enthusiastic students. Ms. Haywood hopes to bring instruments to old and new musicians alike, reviewing pianos, orchestral instruments, and other products that make her tap her fingers to the beats.
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