My wife’s newly bought Beiqi B321 digital piano arrived by SF Express as an oversized delivery. The delivery guy carried it straight upstairs. The gross weight on the package was 35 kg.
I got home in the evening and put it together. Assembly was easier than with the Casio, though the shape of this piano is also a bit more rigid and plain by comparison.
After it was assembled, my wife tried playing it while I went through the manual. That was when I realized that all the settings are handled through Bluetooth, and the connection is done through a WeChat mini program. The recommended QR-code mini program in the manual would not connect, and another “smart piano Bluetooth” mini program would not connect either. Neither gave any error message. In the end, I tried a different mini program, and this one finally showed the problem: location permission had to be enabled first.
The user numbers for these mini programs do not look very high either. Two of them showed a little over 300 users, and one had a little over 100.
I asked my wife about the feel of the keys and the sound. Her impression was that the Beiqi feels more like a traditional acoustic piano. The keys take a bit more effort to press than the Casio, and the rebound is slower. The Casio’s tone is closer to the airy sound of a grand piano, and its keys return faster and feel a little lighter to play.
One thing I noticed about the Beiqi is that the rear ports are not placed very well. Because of where they are, the piano cannot sit flush against the wall. The speakers are also quite small. If I remember correctly, both this piano and the Casio are rated at 8W, but the speakers on this one look much smaller. They face downward too, which may be one reason the sound feels a bit muffled. My wife said this is probably meant to imitate the effect of an upright acoustic piano.
On the packing box, I saw manufacturer information for Jiade Mei. I searched under that name and found that they also sell digital pianos, and the prices are not especially low. There are also accessories for adding a piano-style upper panel.
The mini-program settings feel pretty basic. Later I found that Beiqi also has its own paid app, which explains why the mini program is so bare-bones. The more useful app, with practice features and interactive functions, gives VIP access free for 30 days. This part should be much better than the old Casio experience, but it probably will not be free to use long-term.
If any other issues come up later, I’ll keep recording them.