Should I buy a Digital Piano?

There are many reasons to buy a digital piano. The main reasons are sound, feel, and price.

Sound

Because of computer memory being available in greater sizes fitting in little spaces, the piano sounds in most current digital pianos rival the sound of most vertical pianos. Digital piano manufacturers record each key of a 9' grand piano and reproduce them in digital pianos. This process is called sampling. The models with nicer speakers and wattage are going to reproduce more realistic piano sounds.

Feel

Depending on manufacturer, the keys or action of digital pianos are very close to the feel of grand pianos. These are called fully weighted action keyboards. Fully weighted keyboards are much more preferred by piano teachers over non-weighted keyboards. The closer to an actual piano feel, the better off a student will be when he/she plays an acoustic piano.

Price

The prices for digital pianos are normally cheaper than a vertical piano. But consider this, a digital piano has the sound of a $100,000 9' grand piano for a starting price of around $2000 or less. You also don't have to tune digital pianos. You can save hundreds of dollars in tuning fees over the years.