SWAN X 88 Black

This keyboard comes with a nice case, a charging cable, a music stand, a sustain pedal, some guide stickers for the keys, and a decent pair of headphones. It folds up and travels very easily as others have said, making it ideal for people on the go who don’t want to miss a day of practice. It packs and unpacks very quickly, and it weighs less than 10 pounds, so it’s very portable. The inbuilt speakers are sufficient for practicing, though earphones help significantly. Additionally, there is Bluetooth connectivity that may improve the quality a bit. This isn’t the ideal gigging instrument. The sound samples are what you’d expect from a $170 instrument – certainly not professional-level, but entirely sufficient for practice at home and on the road. There are some nice simulations of sympathetic resonance when the sustain pedal is depressed, which pleasantly surprised me a little at this price point. The best tones are probably the Acoustic Piano, the Rhodes, and the Church Organ. The others are certainly fun to toy with or to use while composing on the road, but probably not sufficient for any kind of serious practice. There are some other great features that make this instrument competitive to practice: the keys are weighted and textured. They are touch-sensitive, with I think 4 levels of sensitivity. The touch-sensitive features aren’t perfect; quick dynamic changes don’t respond as quickly as they possibly could, but at this price point, I think it’s nice to have any touch-sensitivity at all. The action on the instrument is surprisingly decent. It doesn’t give a noticeable lag, and in a few quick tests, the keys don’t give much bounce. That’s a feature that I wish could be found on some much more expensive digital pianos! The battery life is quite good – I played about 4 hours yesterday without looking for an outlet, and the charger (also included) is USB-C, so very easy to replace if necessary. The recording feature works well for listening back to your practice and/or playing duets with yourself. The polyphony on this instrument seems quite good. I haven’t pushed it to its limits yet, but I tested 22-key polyphony over a recording of another 22 keys and it seemed to work well without slowing the processor down. I haven’t tested the MIDI controller features, but I imagine that just extends the usability of this instrument even further. There is an inbuilt metronome. I’m finding it a challenge to adjust the tempo from the default 120BPM, and to be honest the manual is very short and reads like it was passed through Google Translate, so I’ve just carried an external metronome with me so far. There’s still much more to explore. Overall, I think this instrument has a lot of positive features for the price. It’s great if you are trying to decide whether piano is right for you and aren’t ready to commit to a more expensive instrument, are just starting to get back into playing on a budget, or especially if you want an instrument to practice when you’re traveling. At the price, it could be a great instrument to introduce kids to piano as well.

This product really meets the expectations. It is light, easy to set up and when it is folded it fits perfect in the bag which is practical to carry around. Of course it does not sound as a Steinway piano but it does have 88 keys and had a sustain pedal. It works for its purpose.

Likes: Excellent key feel with textured surfaces. Nice weighting. No clacky sounds. Full sized keys (there is no universal standard but for electronic keyboards, which are always slightly narrower than "furniture-pianos" the key width is 23mm white, 9mm black). Some of the sounds are quite good: Church organ is okay, and surprisingly, banjo (but why would you want that on a keyboard?). Construction is sturdy; the folding operation is solid. It's highly playable, on a par with my Yamaha for feel, which is impressive. Why I'm sending it back:1. I didn't expect a Steinway, but the basic piano sound around the middle of the keyboard has overtones like brass bells ringing. It's so loud it hurts my ears. With the volume below 5, I can't even hear the other keys. That makes the unit unsuited for its most basic functinon. 2. The lower octaves (0, 1, and 2) barely work at all. The keyboard's not bad if you stay around middle C (C4), but then why not get a 61-key folding, because you're never going to use the lowest and highest octaves. 3. most of the instrumental voices are not even plausible. The pianos and organs are unusable for me. Church organ only in the middle ranges (D1 issues no sound at all); harpsichord-no; Vibraphone, no. Brass, reeds, voices, strings-forget it. Some are mislabeled. A couple of percussions are not bad. 4. It's bit large for travel. Weighs 8 pounds and is over 2 feet long in the case. OK for overhead, but not really in a suitcase. 4. Changing the voice is a two-handed operation. You have to hold down the tone button while turning the volume knob to scroll. No random access. 5. Plays only on its internal battery. If the battery is run down, you have to stop and charge it for 3 to 5 hours. It's a pretty amazing product at this price and I'd encourage others to try it just because of the excellent feel. But I couldn't tolerate the basic piano tones so I can't use it for its main purpose. I'm now looking at a 61 key foldable for better portability. The 88-key is functionally only about 60 keys anyway so it's a waste of space. Cost isn't that different. I need a piano sound and feel that don't turn me away in a packable unit. This model had only one of those three. [Amazon makes returns easy. I'm sticking with them for my replacement. Looking at Konix, FVery and Cossain].

The sound is beautiful, the key touching is good, the only problem is the noise comes from the power supply area around the volume knob.

I am a professional musician who was looking for an anytime-anywhere keyboard and this is it. The price makes it so I am not concerned if something happens to it: I can get another one. That being said, the quality is very good (no failures out of the box) and if you run the audio out to a boom-box the sound is good enough for even playing a small gig. The action is a little stiff and not truly semi-weighted, as others have noted, but that makes it ideal for scales and velocity practice (Hanon, Czerny). The only knock I have is that the touch sensitivity is too granular for real expression, so yor not going to get by in a critical listening environment, but if you want a professional instrument you'll need to pay for it. Just enjoy jamming anywhere through a decent portable amp and you will love this one too!

Product is extremely portable and seems quite durable. Sound quality is good at this price point. The documentation is very incomplete leaving the user guessing to enjoy all features. I would recommend that they develop an extensive pdf based user manual for past and future users. Thanks