Having Owned a PSR-530, SY-35, SY-99, and Roland G-600 I would say for a beginner the PSR-530 is a good pick as long as it is understood that if you you progress beyond the beginner level their are some limitations that will restrict progress. For example, the user patterns are fixed, and no new ones are available. This means that in order tp come up with songs that don't sound canned you basically have to skip over the patterns and program via an external sequencer. By doing this you defeate the purpose of the machine. I think the best thing to do is pick up a used PSR-530 for now, and once you reach the limits of the machine get something else. I had my PSR-530 for about 2 years before I moved on to something else- the G-600. I thus moved on from the G-600 only because I felt again that with using pre-programmed styles I was cheating, and not really learning properly. But, after selling my synths with styles I seem to miss them somewhat. The sonds on a PSR are definitly better than the stock SY series sounds, but have a canned quality to them PSR=thinness/beginner but realistic presets,SY=thickness/advanced-sound design but dated sounding presets.