Hi Baliboy

Just to confuse things--

I disagree that an amateur does not need "high-end" features. It does not take long for anyone who enjoys their keyboard to run into limitations and want to replace it. You need to think ahead of time about which features are important to you. I assume you are thinking about an arranger keyboard, since you asked your question in this forum.

1. Access to styles. Most mid-range and high-end arranger keyboards (almost all have floppy disk drives) allow custom styles to be used. There are thousands of custom styles available for free on the Web. At the low end, you may be able to load only one or a few styles at a time, and shuffly styles in and out using pile of floppy disks. In other cases, you can store 100 at a time in internal memory and access thousands from an internal hard disk. Some styles have four main variations, some keyboards can only play two main variations.

2. Vocal harmony. If you sing, having your vocal part harmonized along with the chords you are playing is a fun and even useful feature.

3. Aftertouch. Pianos do not use aftertouch. However, synths can emulate wind and string instruments which can be continuously modulated (e.g., by using bow pressure or breath). Aftertouch allows you to modulate a sound (e.g., its volume, brightness and/or vibrato) as it is sustained. There are other ways to accomplish the modulation, but aftertouch is the most convenient.

While I think that XG is an advantage--especially for sharing midi files, it is manufacturer specific. The best sounds are not XG anyway, and there are alternatives to it. I would not treat XG as an major factor in arranger selection.

Other people may have other features they consider critical. You need to think about which ones are important to you. If you cannot decide, spend at the low end of your range until you learn more about what you want.

The Yamaha PSR-740 may be a good choice. It has vocal harmony and plays 4-variation styles. Unfortunately, it can load only 3-4 styles at once and has no aftertouch. It is XG compatible.

The Yamaha PSR-640 is similar to the PSR-740 but lacks vocal harmony. (The PSR-540 is similar to the PSR-540, but only plays 2-variations styles).

The Yamaha PSR-8000 is a former high-end arranger. Is it basically the same as the PSR-740, with the addition of aftertouch, sampling, and the availability of a hard disk from which styles can be loaded. On the down side, it only plays 2-variations styles. It is out of production, but if you can find it for the same price it is a better deal than the PSR-740.

Roland EM-2000. This is being discounted to the PSR-740 range, but is a higher-end arranger. It does have aftertouch, but no vocal harmony. However, it can load many more styles than the PSR-740. Most people seem to prefer the built-in Roland styles to the built-in Yamaha styles. The Rolands are not XG, but they have there own extension to general midi, e.g., GS. The G-1000 is similar, but has 76 keys and no speakers.

The Casio MZ-2000 has aftertouch, lots of controls, but no vocal harmony and no hard disk.

The Korg PA-80 is new and slightly above your ranger. However, it has everything. You might wait and see what happens to its price.

The Korg i30 is out of production and might be discounted or available used within your price range. It is a high-end synths, but without a vocal harmony option.

I think the most important thing for you to do is to read over the equipment-related posts of the last several months. You will read a wide variety of reasons for buying or not buying each synth. Try to do more in the way of defining which features are important to you, and get back to us.