Yamaha PSR295AD Portable Electronic Keyboard with Adapter

 Great for those trying to learn piano
PROS:
-Extremely lightweight for its size
-Comes with power supply (unlike many other keyboards an amazon.com) and _adjustable height_ stand
-Instruction manual is very well done, and includes music theory (e.g. how to form almost any type of chord)

CONS:
-LCD Display is small; you'll need good eyesight
-The stand that comes with it is not too sturdy; once I decided on the right height for it, I had to reinforce it by wrapping an old piece of speaker wire around the hub a few times. (Hey, it worked!)
-Doesn't come with a USB cable

Although the songbook included is aimed at beginners (with less than, say, a year of piano experience), it's a great piano for anyone trying to learn chord-based playing. You can enter virtually any chord (such as F#m7b5) and the display will indicate what keys you must press to play it. This is very helpful when playing through a fake book and you come across a chord you don't know how to play. (NOTE: As you're playing, the display shows the bass and treble clef indication of every key you play, but does not name the actual chord you're playing (e.g. "Bm7") unless you have the ACMP activated.)

The transposition function is convenient--if you only know how to play in one key, you can play along with any other musician playing the same song in a different key. The pitch-tuning function is also nice (in case you're playing along side a slightly out-of-tune instrument and want to match its sound).

All in all there are well enough features to justify the price; you'll save 22 bucks in shipping by buying it from Amazon, and mine arrived one day after they shipped it out!

NOTE: This piano doesn't come with a sustain petal (as another reviewer indicated), but has a jack for one if you decide to buy one separately.

 Great Value for Money
[Please note that this product is currently available from Amazon under three packagings: PSR-295 (no adapter), PSR-295AD (includes adapter) and PSR-295MS (includes adapter and stand). I bought the PSR-295MS package.]

I got this full-length keyboard at a great price of $190 with included adapter and keyboard. Both accessories are a must, since this thing is huge.

The product shipped in two days (from PA to MD) with free shipping. I was delighted to find a helpful instructional DVD in the package to get started with the basics, so I didn't have to go through the manual, except for detailed and advanced features.

Also included was a Song Book, with staff music for some popular songs. It's great for someone who knows how to read music - I'm still learning to. There's also software to transfer music between PC and keyboard.

"Portable Grand" is just a one-touch button option to set the keyboard to Grand Piano mode. Of course, this cannot be expected to sound as great or realistic as a high-end digital piano or an expensive wooden one. However, the touch sensitive feature makes it as realistic as possible.

Here are the features I liked:
* Display shows notes and chords being played in three ways - staff notation, note name (ex. E# m7 aug etc.), and graphical (actual keys on a diagram).
* Truly Touch (Force) Sensitive Keys (can be toggled on/off).
* 487 Voices (incl. ~360 XGLite voices).
* 136 Accompaniment Styles to play along.
* Built-in songs which can be practised using Yamaha Education Suite. (Buil-in feature).
* Jog Dial to move between voice/style/song numbers.
* Flash memory to record your songs.
* Direct USB connection (MIDI-USB connecter cable *not* required - that cable would cost around $40).
* Software to transfer songs and voices between PC and keyboard.
* Truly stero output (not just two speakers).
* Phono/Line-Out socket.
* Sustain pedal socket (pedal not included).

Here are some things I didn't like:
* USB cable not included. ($7 extra from Amazon).
* Volume sometime seems a little low. But then, you can always pass output through amps if you really need it that loud.
* No mic or line-in socket.
* Phono out uses 1/4 inch pin. Had to buy a 1/8 to 1/4 converter from RadioShack.
* LCD display is highly "directional", visible only when looking at a particular angle. This is not much of a problem when playing sitting. However, if playing standing, this may be a little inconvenient.
* No sustain toggle switch. If you don't have a sustain pedal, turning sustain on/off manually takes a couple of steps.

Overall, at under $190, free shipping and included adapter and stand, this is a great buy for beginners as well as advanced users.

I had a Yamaha PSS-11 long back. It was a good beginner keyboard but it soon outgrew me, since you couldn't play it with two hands. Overall, I like Yamaha quality and find their keyboards much more professional than Casio ones (maybe I'm wrong). Of course, "real" professionals would use KORG, but that'll be upwards of $1000! :)

 Perfect for Begginers
It does all what it says on the official website and am very happy with the overall quality of the product. If you have a computer studio setup you can use the USB connection provided to create top quality music. And its design is great too.

Other feautures include-
3 touch sensitivity settings
built in flash memory
you can import midis from the pc to the keyboards memory and learn
Sustain pedal

The only drawback is the lack of aftertouch and average sounds apart from the piano and a few others. But if you are using the computer to create sounds this makes it a non issue.

 Poor piano sound
The piano sound is dire on this keyboard.

It's muffled, and sounds more like a synth trying to sound like a guitar on a couple of notes.

I returned mine for refund and bought a Casio CTK-691.

 The Keyboard
The keyboard was pretty good overall - you must get the adapter (AD) or else... The volume is low even all the way turned up with some of the voices, but with other ones it's loud enough - but if you have an amp - no need to worry about that. It came with 400+ voices, which was good... and the only problem is that it requires a special usb cord to connect from CPU to keyboard - not just the kind that has a USB 1.0 on one end and a USB 2.0 on the other - so you'd have to buy that separately. I like Amazon's free supersaver shipping. Since other reviewers said not to ship by UPS, I called Amazon's "secret" 1-800, and the rep there said there was no way to switch shippers... So, I went ahead and had it supersaver shipped, and the big brown UPS truck drove by a week or two later, and my package was fine! Everything thing was intact and in excellent working condition. One last "problem" - when you try to record, it automatically turns on the auto accompaniment - which you can turn off manually, but....

I'd say, that if your not a real serious pianist, but are looking for a portable keyboard that does a little bit of recording, etc., get it!

 Yamaha's best value in a portable keyboard
The PSR295 was introduced in 2004. It has the same tone generator as the PSR275 with more focus on style (rhythm patterns) than in memory songs .The PSR295 is the entry level in Yamaha's intermediate line of portable keyboards, the PSR275 is at the high end of their entry level keyboards, so if you're just learning to play you might consider the PSR275.

The PSR295 is Yamaha's best value, for around $200 you get over 400 instruments, including a full GM set and Yamaha's XGLite instruments. A six channel sequencer allows for recording of your own songs and a USB port and MIDI USB bridge driver makes connecting the PSR295 to any computer a snap (the USB MIDI driver is especially great if you want to connect the PSR295 to a laptop for MIDI file downloading or connecting to PC sequencing software such as Sonar Cakewalk, Cubase, etc...).

Also I suggest you check out the Casio CTK691. The CTK691 features more on board memory for songs and more instruments (voices), however it lacks the sound quality of the Yamaha PSR295 , those who say otherwise are comparing the sound of the speakers (the speaker system in the CTK691 is a bit better), hook the two up to earphones or an amp and the PSR295 shines. Both offer a GM set, but only the PSR295 offers Yamaha's XGLite (there are quite a few MIDI files floating around that utilize XG) so don't be fooled by the CTK691 apparent more voices, the 400+ available on the PSR295 are better quality. The CTK691 features a standard MIDI port, to connect it to a PC or laptop you're going to be out $20-$40 for an adapter, worse yet if your sound card doesn't have a gameport you'll could be out $60+ for a MIDI card/cable. Yamaha has the right idea by providing USB and a MIDI bridge on top of USB, surprisingly it has very low latency when used as a MIDI Controller (using Cakewalk Sonar), the PC mode button makes it easy to tt configure the keyboard with popular MIDI setups and makes using an external sequencer extreemly easy.

My only compliant with the PSR295 is that they didn't include a standard MIDI IN/OUT port along with the USB. Although I was impressed by the low latency of the USB MIDI driver, it would have been nice to be able to use the keyboard with E-MU 0404 or M-Audio Audiophile 2496. Some of the new budget end "pro" audio cards include excellent MIDI I/O which this keyboard will be unable to take advantage of. Still if I had to pick between USB MIDI and standard MIDI, for a portable keyboard USB is much more practicle