I don't wish to repeat the views of the previous reviewer who summarized this product very well. It is essentially best for home studio use, but I would like to add a little further color on what it is like to gig with:

One drunken night in London three years ago, I accidentally dropped my Korg O1W down four flights of stairs. At the time I was considerably worse off than now and couldn't afford to have it repaired straightaway but I needed to play to earn cash - a classic Catch-22. What to do? Unable to borrow a replacement from any of my friends, the only alternative was to hire one.
While in the store, I noticed that they had a special on a model I probably would not have looked twice at before - the X5-D. They were selling it for the equivalent of just under $550 - less than the repair cost of my O1W. I figured I'd rather buy something than have to hire, and I could always find some use for it later. I had very few expectations. I just needed it to hold up through two gigs and not embarrass me. Also, I hoped it would have enough decent sounds so that I could use it as a module later on.

First of all, let me underline that this is not really a good keyboard for the road. However, if you are desperate it won't embarrass you - with a bit of experience you can get some great sounds out of it. I gigged with this baby for three weeks at various venues in London. I was playing lead synth for an R&B group. As such, I needed to be able to get fat, warm, swelling, synth sounds and I got them.

You'll be amazed at the quality of the sounds. I had no idea that Korg would have done so much with a low-end model. It falls down on some of the acoustic sounds -anything with strings in particular - and only does a middle-of-the-road acoustic piano, but you wouldn't expect any different at this price. Editing the variables though can give you some surprising results - tweaking the oscillation type I got a really rich organ sound.

Because this is a very basic synth it is incredibly easy to use (and I lost the manual the first day!). The keys are not weighted. This can be a drawback if you are not prepared for the high velocity sensitivity. However, I generally don't expect weighted keys from a synth.

Since the memory is limited, there is no floppy drive and no built-in sequencer, I actually think the X5-D lends itself more to being played than anything else. Overall, if what you're looking for is a cheap synth to play, you won't go wrong with this.

Recommended: Yes