Hi all. I've been delaying my piano purchase for months now and my husband went and got me a gift certificate to Steinway for Christmas. All of their Roland digitals are on sale. They do not have any of the 203s or 207s in stock. They do have the i6 or the R-557 (the 557 being more expensive but still half of what it usually costs). I think the 557 has been discontinued.

Does anyone have these pianos and any opinion about their performance? I think I should just grab one of them but I'm not sure which one. And do you think is not a good idea to buy a discontinued piano?

Roland is a good name; the company is not discontinued. This piano will last for at least 10 years in your life, keep that in mind. Will you have access to service for a discontinued product? You could call the company and ask about that perhaps.

The Piano Buyer electronic book, accessible from this page, right sidebar, has a digital section. Roland is considered in it as well. Take a look and see if that gives enough information and weight to a choice. Good luck! Enjoy your new (to be) piano, and congratulations on the gift certificate!

I've never heard of the R-557, and also can't find it on Google.
The HP-i6 is a good choice IMO, but it has the old PHA keaboard, and many features, that I personally would never use, so think about that.
Are these two really the only Rolands available?
If you don't need all the extra features, I'd go for the Mahagony version of the HP 201, which is cheap and has the PHAII action, or wait for the HP 203 and 207 to be available again...

The problem is discontinued DPs is that technology moves fast, so think of it the same as buying a discontinued cell phone or last years computer. So consider the price.

Seems odd to be shopping for a Roland DP in a Steinway shop. But then I demo'd the Rolands in a place called "Guitar Center" which sound like it's maybe not the place to look for pianos.

I don't know the models you listed but I know Roland only makes only a few different key actions and uses them in all their many different models of DP. My opinion is that you should get whichever piano has what Roland calls "PHA II Ivory Feel keyboard with Escapement" This, I thought was the best, I did not like the "PHA II Alpha" The plane "PHA II" keys were OK but the "Ivory Feel keyboard with Escapement" adds a lot the feel of the keys. Find a way to get that

I tried the Roland RD700GX (which has the good "ivory feel" keys) and would have bought it if not for the $2,500 price and then I'd need to spend another $500 for monitor speakers.

I also tried the Roland v-piano. It was in a room all alone with no one paying it any attention. Suprizing. I expected there to be a waiting list to try it. But people were Christmas shopping and not many buy a $6K DP as a gift. My un-expert opinion: The sound was very good but I thought the RD700 was as good. The v-piano's advantage is that you can finely adjust the sound to suit the music. but unless you were into that, may as well buy the '700 as it has a dozen piano voices, enough for me. The v-piano's PHA III keys seems longer then the PHA II keys and the feel was as good. I did not suggest gettig a DP with PHA II keys only because, I think they are only available on the v-piano that being Roland's top of the line DP.