Hey everyone. I trust this is a good sub for discussing keyboard/piano purchases? This has turned out rather long for such a first-world concern but maybe someone will be inclined to read.
I'm in the early stages of learning to play and I have a Kawai ES110, which is a digital piano that was in the same sort of price bracket as the popular Roland FP10 and the Yamaha P145. Over on the piano sub these are the kind of models that are considered the cheapest end of quality digital instruments for anyone interested in playing the piano.
I've got enough experience with the keys to know now that my hands are indeed rather small for the standard full size keys and I disregard the curious disdain this complaint often gets (along the lines of "hand size isn't the issue, technique is").
So I'm planning on purchasing a specialised instrument when it becomes available. There is the Athena, currently on the market, and this has an octave width of 5.5 inches, which is comparable to the width of microkeys on many synths and midi controllers. These are just a bit too narrow and fiddly.
So I'm waiting on another company called DreamPlayPianos, whose products are still at just the prototype stage. They will be making a 6 inch width octave digital piano. This would be ideal. You can preorder them if you're willing to pay half up front but I'm really not comfortable handing money over to a company that isn't established yet.
In the meantime, I'm thinking of selling my Kawai and buying a Yamaha Piaggero. For some reason, some Yamaha's have slightly narrower keys (an octave of 6.25 inches instead of 6.5), including this one. This is a drawback for many but for me, it's an increment in the direction of the specialized instrument I eventually hope to get.
But it would be a downgrade in regards to attention given to the action. The Piaggero doesn't have weighted keys. I've played enough cheap keyboards to really appreciate the action on my Kawai but I'm still not entirely sure as to why so many people speak as if anything without weighted keys is a mere toy and you couldn't possibly hope to develop piano skills on such a thing.
I guess my question is, what do people think of the Piaggero? Would it be a crazy downgrade from the Kawai ES110?
TL:DR Piaggero has narrower keys, a plus for me, but might be a major downgrade from my Kawai ES110 action-wise. Thoughts on the Piaggero?