After years of playing my Yamaha DGX-500, I was looking to upgrade my digital piano to something that had graded hammer action, that would look nice in my living room, and that sounded as close to an acoustic piano as possible. I also wanted to spend around a thousand bucks. The Casio AP420, seemed to fit the bill, and having played other Casio digital pianos in my local music store (PX800, PX330, AP200), I was fairly confident in making this purchase from Amazon, sight-unseen.

The mangled box arrived in less than a week, looking like it had fallen off the truck or had been used for target practice. I was almost afraid to look inside. Fortunately, the engineers who designed the packaging did a marvelous job. Every piece was removed from the box in perfect condition. Assembly of the piano was not difficult, took less than an hour, and really did require two people.

The cabinet of the AP420 is quite attractive. I like the sliding keyboard cover, and the faux front legs of the piano, which really make it look less like a keyboard and more like an actual piece of furniture. The pedal board is quite solid, and the action of the brass pedals is firm. The included bench is built like a tank. Im a rather big guy, and the bench easily supports my weight. The bench is height-adjustable, which is nice, but there is no way to store music inside it. The modesty panel (the back of the piano) covers all but about a 1 inch gap across the top. The gap is visible only when looking at the rear of the piano, or bending over and looking under the keyboard. Having no visible gaps in the back panel where you can see through the piano, helps give the illusion that the piano is deeper than it really is, making it look more like its in an actual cabinet. One negative point, the music stand is not hinged. Rather, it has two pins that are inserted into holes in the top of the piano. The music stand feels sturdy enough, but the way it attaches seems kind of cheap.

The action on the AP-420 is very nice. The key surfaces (texture) have an ivory feel to them, rather than a cheap plastic feel like most other digital pianos (including some that are WAY more expensive). The action is solid, the keys dont wiggle, and the overall feel is as authentically mechanical as I have encountered in a digital piano. Now, there is a slight thump sound when the keys are fully depressed (seems to be a Casio DP trait), even when the keys are played with just moderate force. This is slightly annoying, but is not really noticeable when wearing headphones, or when the volume is turned up.

The sound quality of the piano samples is probably my chief complaint. The 2x20W built in speakers/amplifier provide ample sound, which is clear, and undistorted. But the piano samples sound slightly muffled to me. This could be because the speakers point downward out of the keyboard sending sound waves directly into my carpeting. There are some attractive fabric-covered ports on the left and right sides above the keyboard that I assume are there to allow some passive speaker sound emanate from the top side of the keyboard. But from what I can hear, 95 percent of the sound comes from the bottom. When playing through headphones, the piano samples sound quite a bit better. The brightness/timbre of the tones is adjustable, but the piano samples seem to take on a tinny sound if adjusted from their default setting. Overall, the piano sounds are not bad; theyre just not quite as good as I was hoping for.