Donner 88 Key Weighted Keyboard Piano Full Size

Weighted keys, decent speaker’s, user friendly interface. Moved up from 61 keys. Nice unit. Great customer service.

I’ve been playing keyboards for over 60 years. I live with my wife and a 9 year old grand daughter and a 15 year old grand son. I’m the only musician in the family and I have my music/computer room with a $2000 weighted action synthesizer and DAW software and an expensive audio interface and studio monitors and headphones and microphones and music stands and microphone stands and lots of wires. Sometimes the kids would ask to play my “piano”. I gladly boot up the computer so that my audio interface has power so that the keyboard sound can be pumped to my studio monitors and I make adjustments to the volumes of the audio interface and the synthesizer and then they can start playing my “piano”. They play and I try to teach them a few things. But they don’t play for long because my studio is not an inviting place. It doesn’t have a warm and fuzzy atmosphere. It’s a bit claustrophobic. After watching every youtube video about the donner dep 20 (and other keyboards) multiple times, I bought a donner dep 20 and put it in our living room on a z-type stand that can easily be moved around. It can be moved out of the way in front of the non-used fireplace and it can easily be moved to where it’s facing the big tv where youtube videos are commonly watched. Now when the wife or kids or visitors want to play the “piano”, they just sit down, push the power button, and start playing. I didn’t care much about the hundreds of built-in sounds of the donner dep 20 because it was just supposed to be a “piano”. But those extra sounds allowed me to play along with youtube videos of popular bands playing tunes that my wife or kids wanted to hear and allowed me to play a voice (or voices if I layered two voices together) that really made me a rock star in their eyes. If Van Halen starts playing “jump” and I play it with a synthesizer sound instead of a piano sound, suddenly my wife and kids take notice and they want to learn to play the part. The “jump” tune is just one example of where the extra non-piano sounds really help to get people to want to play when they otherwise might not get interested. Don’t under-estimate the power of being able to easily move your keyboard to being in front of a tv with youtube. My wife and kids frequently try to play along with youtube videos that have the notes or chords displayed and I teach them. The keyboard action on the donner dep 20 is closer to an acoustic piano than my $2000 weighted action synthesizer. My synthesizer has a very heavily-weighted action — maybe more than some acoustic pianos, but it doesn’t have the volumetric dynamic range of the donner dep 20. Also, my synthesizer has somewhat short throw keys, whereas the donner dep 20 has a proper amount of throw in the keys. I truly love the keyboard action of the donner dep 20. I’ve had my donner dep 20 for about a month now. I hope the dep 20 lasts a long time, but if it doesn’t I would probably buy another dep 20 to replace it. It’s what makes my house a home. I know that may sound corny, like I’m trying to sell one. The dep 20 is not for everybody. When I first started looking for a keyboard for the living room, I wanted pitch-bend and modulation wheels and jacks in the back for plugging in a volume pedal and another effect pedal for controlling the modulation so it could allow me to play an organ sound with a live controllable rotary speaker cabinet effect. That would be cool, but once I started shopping around I realized that all I really needed was a piano — not another synthesizer. When I saw how inexpensive the dep 20 was, I quickly gave up the idea of pitch-bend and mod wheels. The dep 20 is not a full-blown synthesizer, but it is more than just a piano. My full-blown synthesizer is intimading, even to me after decades with it in a music studio. The dep 20 is fun. The dep 20 is always there in the living room ready to play with one push of the power button. I’m not writing this review because I’m excited with “new toy syndrome”. I’m totally over the “new toy” ownership excitement. For some people, like me, the dep 20 can actually be life-changing in a good way. The dep 20 is not just cool because of what it is, but also where it can be easily moved to.

I’ve had this digital piano for about two weeks now and I love it, the weighted keys feel really good, very similar to the feel of a regular piano, so much so that if you push a key light enough, it simulates a real piano where no sound comes out and the more force you apply, the louder the note.

The sound is very good too, the speakers are powerful and I’m usually going at 25-50% volume as the speakers can get quite loud.

Its also really nice that you get two headphone jacks at the front instead of the back, its very convenient placement. Just make sure to get an adapter as the opening is 1/4 inch and a lot of headphones are 1/8.

All of this with a nice looking, sturdy piano stand for less than $400 is just a steal. A similar set up (piano, stand and the three pedals) from a brand name would be in the $800 range. For a complete beginner like me, its probably not worth it to spend double.

I didn’t use the many tunes and different instrument sounds the keyboard is capable of producing as I’m only interested in piano for now, but there is a huge variety to choose from.

Been using a 10-12 year old 61 key Yamaha for quite a while, mostly to have sound tracks to play guitar to, and to break down chords that I am learning on the guitar, to see how it all relates to the piano. I found myself running out of keys once I got into the second octave on the guitar neck, so wanted a full 88 key unit. Plus, ten year old sound tracks on the Yamaha, Ugh…

After MUCH research, (you can get a cheaper 88 key unit, but most are junk), I decided, based on reviews and YouTube videos this was the best bang for the buck.
Let me list the Pros and Cons:

Pros:
Uses the 128 polyphony software, which makes it sound just like a good piano. Some of the other instruments, not so much, and the drums are basically worthless, but a lot to play around with, but not a toy.
Full 88 keys with full weight, hammer action, full size.
Decent amount of add-on stuff, but not too much so it becomes more of a toy than an actual instrument. My old Yamaha had so much junk on it I didn’t use but about 10% of it.
Cool USB and MP3 connections for playing along to your playlist, and hooking into software on something like your laptop.
Four speaker system is better than most people think. Two up, two down. It gives the unit a much more rounded sound, where the top only speaker units shoot 100% of the sound straight up. This sounds more like a real piano.
Sustain pedal is cool, not that crummy little plastic square most come with.
Sounds like an actual acoustic piano in the default setting, save it is always 100% in tune, whereas a typical acoustic is like any other stringed instrument, tuning can vary due to humidity, temperature, usage, etc. This is ALWAYS in 100% tune.
Front mounted dual headphone jacks are cool. If you are taking a lesson, one on the student, one on the teacher, or if two people want to play quietly, lots of options. Like it.
Power Supply is included, and it is way smaller than my old Yamaha unit, which ran pretty warm. This is much better.

Cons:
Right off the bat, it is just too thick in the front. About 6″ total from the tops of the keys to the bottom. Then there are 1″ feet added, so if you try to put it on a table, it is just too high. For me, when I put it on my homemade stand at about the standard keyboard height, (I’m a woodworker), I found that my knees were hitting the lower front of the unit when the keys were about at the correct height for a typical upright piano. So you need long arms, and short legs. Not a deal breaker, but more of an annoyance.

They don’t make a three pedal unit, (Soft/Sostenuto/Sustain) for this unit. You have to buy the one with the stand that looks somewhat like an upright. It is somehow built into that stand, and they just don’t sell the three pedal unit as an add-on, although the jack is there on the back. They also claim that no other brand will work, so you are stuck with a single sustain pedal. I’m going to keep looking, maybe someone somewhere, who knows.

On mine, the highest two keys sound like they are straining to get the note out. In Grand Piano mode, (default), they are almost not projecting any sound, just a hiss. I will admit that my hearing is not as good as it used to be, but if I turn on some other types of tones in the unit, they come to life. Again, not a deal breaker, but it reveals itself as a digital…

Music holder is cheesy. It works, but my feeling is it might break in the future.

The instructions are there, but you can tell some Chinese person did the writing and translation, and some of the explanations are a bit hit and miss, plus the verbage used in the book does not necessarily match the names on the buttons. I found myself just going through, button by button, and making notes in the book so I know what effect does what, and the name that is actually used on the button. Once you play it a while, you will get to know.

Takes a while to get through all the sounds. You hold down a button, and it scrolls through. A little keypad would have been great so if you want to sound like a Harpsichord, you just hit a couple numbers, not scroll through tons of other sounds. At least the readout is good and clear.

Lastly, and this is nit-picking, I am not a fan of the slider volume system. I like a round knob. Over the years, I have had more than one of these sliders fail. Not a fan, but it does work and the unit is loud!

Overall, for a beginner, or a person in their first few years of their piano journey, or an apartment or small house person with not a lot of room, this is really hard to beat.
One publication noted it the best unit for under $700. I think that is about right. It is definitely worth the money, and I highly recommend buying it from Amazon, although you can get it a bit cheaper elsewhere.
But with Amazon backing it, you are good to go. So far, for me, I love it, love the key action, and find myself learning more piano now than ever before.
Recommended!

This is a great deal for the money. Quality and sound were unmatched at this price point. But damn this thing is heavy. I suppose that’s what happens when you have weighted keys. But I think 88keys was just too big for my space. I would like the 61key model better. 88keys is better for someone who has a place to set a keyboard up and not have to put away—not as practical for storing or travel (unless you’re a prof musician). They do have awesome cases with wheels and backpack straps that fit this keyboard though, so it’s def worth trying out.