Casio WK-245 Review – Do We Recommend It For Beginners?

Are you or your kid a beginner at playing digital pianos? And are you looking to purchasing your first ever digital piano? If so then you might have seen the overwhelming number of options different brands are offering. Don’t worry, we’ve been there, and we know how difficult can be to choose the right digital piano for yourself. 

If this is you then stick to the end of this Casio WK-245 review because this could be the right digital piano for you. Even if it’s not, you’ll learn a great deal about what to look for and what to avoid. 

So, without further ado let’s start dissecting the different aspects and features of the Casio WK-245.

Features Of Casio WK-245:

Before we dive right in, we want to inform you that the Casio WK-245 is a beginner level piano and therefore you should know what you should be expecting. This prevents you from keeping high expectations, which can get badly shattered by the reality of these beginner-level keyboards. 

To prevent that from happening, you should know what beginners should look for in a piano. This can be a compact and portable keyboard that provides several inbuilt instrument sounds while the keys have somewhat or complete resistance to them. Furthermore, a battery-powered keyboard, computer connectivity, and internal recording are features that have grown a lot in demand. 

Additional features are always welcome but in a limited budget, they are seldom provided. Okay, enough of waiting, time to get down to the real business.

Build Quality

First of all, this is a 76 keyed digital piano which is something we normally don’t recommend but its not as bad as a 61 keyed digital piano. It’s only lacking 5 keys from being an 81 keyed digital piano. So maybe it isn’t that big of a con for a beginner. However, if you do get better at it you might want to switch to a full-sized keyboard soon. This may take a year or more until then your money would’ve been paid off. 

As for the design its quite a simple piano except that the corners are curved, and the control panel has a backlit LCD. Although plasticky keys are a huge turn-off for us, for a price like this you can hardly find better keys. The rest of the body is quite sturdy, and the weight of the keyboard is only 23 lbs. This makes for a lightweight keyboard but is it compact, too?

Yes, it’s 50 inches long and 18 inches wide. Thus, it can be carried around easily and placed anywhere, especially in car trunks. This is essential for beginners as they are required to carry their instruments to their classroom and back every day. 

Another thing that is not relevant to aesthetics but is relevant to portability is being powered by batteries. This is something worth noting if you’re going to be taking it places regularly. 

Sound quality and memory

While the quality of the instrument sounds is good enough, the memory of built-in tones, songs, and presets are amazing. With 600 built-in tones, 148 presets, and 152 built-in songs the Casio WK has truly impressed us. The disappointing thing was to find that it can only hold up to a polyphony of 48 notes. Casio could easily have done much better than this. 

Furthermore, the WK-230 has been equipped with a built-in amplifier that did not stand up to the promise. The speakers were also subpar. The purpose of providing a built-in amplifier is to save us from plugging into an external amplifier but that purpose has been lost here. Connecting to an external amplifier and speaker drastically improved the sound quality.

However, as we’ve said before the sound quality is good enough, so beginners won’t find trouble learning on this keyboard and improving their skills. Also, with the provided sound memory beginners will be able to provide exciting pieces of music and have fun while doing so. This is something not common with other keyboards of this price range.

Key sensitivity

Although the keys of Casio WK-245 are not weighted or graded they do respond according to the sensitivity of the touch. Furthermore, the length and width of keys are the same as that of an 88 keyed digital piano. These features are enough for beginners to learn and get better at playing the piano.  

However, we are not downplaying the importance of weighted and graded keys which this keyboard lacks. We admit that this will be a hurdle for someone who has learned to play on this keyboard and is looking forward to moving to a real piano. 

More Features:

Usually, cheap keyboards have fancy features that are attractive to novices, but they rarely play a role in improving their skills. The Casio WK-245 does not have such features because it has provided enough already in terms of its sound quality, memory, and its aesthetics. 

Since we’ve mentioned the subpar quality of internal speakers and amplifiers, there isn’t much to say here. But the 5-song recorder and 6-track recorder are worthy features to have. Moreover, a mic with volume control can also come handy during a concert performance.

These features collectively show that onboard sampling is possible on the Casio WK-245. It also provides easy connectivity to Macs and PCs through MIDI USBs. So, you’ll be able to save what you have created. 

This ability of onboard sampling and being able to store them is something that you’ll rarely find in keyboards that are made for beginners.

Unboxing of Casio WK-245:

Pros and Cons of Casio WK-245:

Has this break down become overwhelming for you? Forgive us, we piano lovers like to get too deep into this subject that we forget who’s listening. So, we’ll break these features down into simple pros and cons to make it easier for you to decide if its worth your money or not.

Conclusion

As can see that the pros of owning Casio WK-245 digital piano are more than its cons but the cons are worth considering. They will affect your ability and therefore you should only consider this keyboard when you’re limited to this budget. At this budget, other keyboards will not be able to provide more or even the same. 

Anyways, our goal was to provide an honest Casio WK-245 review, let us know how well we did. Also, let us know if we missed something.