Piano World Home Page Forums Our Most Popular Forums Digital Pianos - Electronic Pianos - Synths & Keyboards Kawai announces ES110 ultra-portable digital piano

Hello folks,

Here's some new product information that you may be interested in:



Kawai Global website: ES110 product page

Cheers,
James
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Looks like a nice upgrade, James. I hope the new compact action plays as nicely as the older AHA IV action. Since I prefer the Kawai EPs to Roland's offerings in their lower weight pianos, this could make a handy small-gig piano for me.

Does it have USB and/or Midi in/out/through?

Doug, according to the brochure, it's the same as the ES100: MIDI in/out via 5-pin DIN, but no USB.

Strange move, the portable market is already saturated.

Also Bluetooth MIDI! And it's cool it has the line outs.

I'm curious how it feels compared with the ES100. Looks like a really good competitor at the >$1k price range.

Listed at Sweetwater

It was saturated with ES100-s mainly. Now they swap them with ES110-s and keep the saturation for themselves. Greedy capitalist bastards!

It sounds exciting...

There are some first discussions started in my local church about the idea of investing into a portable digital piano. ES110 specs seem to be promising so far

This will take at least a few months but possibly a year or two until really looking for which model to buy. At least there is a chance that the new model reaches our market by then.

I am particularly curious about Responsive Hammer Compact keyboard action, hoping to read some reviews soon.

So the things improved with regard to actual piano playing are:

- Keyboard
- Better speakers

The sample set seems to be the same. It's still HI, and the keyboard is now first generation RH.

So, we'll know the improvements for the ES120, ES130, and so on. At some time, they will move to RH-II, RH-III, and PHI and HI-XL. At that point, the CA-line will already be at GF-8 and HI-Ultra-XXXL

How is the lower weight achieved? More plastic? Thinner plastic? Now using carbon fiber? (I doubt it.) The one thought I always have with a lower weight is: cheaper build quality, except if some clearly lighter yet stronger material has been used.

How many key sensors are in the ES110?

Looking at the pic for the action they have on their official website, I'm pretty sure it's 2 sensors, it seems it only has two notches. You can compare it to the ES8 as well, where they explicitly say "triple hammer sensor" and the membrane is bigger.

You're probably right. If the new model now had three, they'd be telling us about it.

seems a bit of a strange positioning against FP-30 - FP-30 with the PHA-IV keybed has tri-sensor ?

no USB seems very very odd to me - would have thought all or most midi equipped pianos these days would have usb

I guess pros and cons of each - will be interesting to try in shop

Line-out on the ES110 is an advantage though

I also find strange no USB and also not being able to determine where the split point is (this is what i understood from the user manual, sorry if i am wrong).

This piano has a different target then the FP30, i get that, but it seems that minimalism is pushed a little too far, as those 2 aspects seem quite basic.

Nevertheless, i'm just hoping to read some reviews, particularly concernig the key action and, if the positive feeling of the ES100 remains, i will probably buy one of these :-)

interested to hear what you mean by a different target than the FP30 ?

in what sense ? not doubting you - just wondering what the 2 target markets are

Let me me start by saying i am no expert, nor as piano player not as commercial so this is based on what i have read in the last couple of months while searching for a portable piano below 1000€.

The es100 and the es110 do not compare to the fp30 in terms of features beyond the key fell. Fp30 has much more sounds, usb, split poin selection, acompainement, i believe there was somethin with recording and plying from a usb stck. The es100 excels on the key action, so i would say that it will appeal to someone who in focused on the similaraty to an acoustic piano that does not give too much importance to such additional features.

Again, this is a personal conclusion based on what is spread out through the web, including this forum.

The RH does have 2 sensors, as the main difference between RH and RHII is the addition of a 3rd sensor as mentioned here: http://kawaius.com/2015/digital/Features/actions.html.

That is unless they used a new version of RH as in the link provided in the OP it does say "Brand new Responsive Hammer Compact keyboard action" which could be interpreted as meaning brand new in the RH line or brand new for the es100 series depending on how you look at it.

Edit: The new action in this keyboard is called Responsive Hammer Compact, whereas the above comparison is for just Responive Hammer. No idea if this one has 2 or 3 sensors.

Looking at the features, it seems Kawai is targetting the "musician that is constantly gigging" with the ES110, rather than the "person that wants to start learning piano". This second group is what Roland, Casio, and Yamaha seem to be aiming for with their products.

Lowest weight, bluetooth MIDI, conventional Line Out (with speakers still acting as monitors) and MIDI ports make for an extremely portable keyboard that's well suited for live use.

Speakers seem a bit underpowered though...