Feature:
It came with a sustain pedal. I purchased several PCMCIA cards for storing my sounds all in one place, for ease of changing sounds in a program. However, Alesis has removed one of the PCMCIA slots from the 8.2 making it harder to copy from card to card. Now you have to dump to keyboard and then reload back to a different card.
Quality:
I purchased this keyboard based on the reliability and durability of my original QS8. I have an intermittent problems with it locking up, the display showing some sort of heiroglypics and then resulting in a pink noise. This is a problem when playing live settings and there are no other instruments to cover for you. I have found out that Alesis was purchased by a company named Numark; it appears the quality is no longer the same.
Value:
I would never purchase another Alesis product based on my experience with this. It's worth it to pay more for a product and have piece of mind that it will perform when needed.
Desirability:
I think the silver color looks cheap compared to the original QS8 which was a semi-gloss black.
Sound:
I chose this product because I previously owned an original QS8 for over 10 years. I loved the sounds and the touch of the keyboard. Nice bright pianos.
Ease of Use:
Typical of most keyboards, you have to study the manual. The manual for the 8.2 was much easier to understand than the one I previously had with the original QS8.
Support:
I had to send my keyboard in for repair in January, 2007 (only 6 months old) for locking up (see above quality). They said they couldn't find anything wrong with it! (It was locked when it left my home.) It took 5 1/2 weeks turnaround to get my keyboard back and it was scratched, dented and had something spilled onit when it was returned. I made at least 15 phone calls to customer service trying to find out the status. Customer service would never return my phone calls. It was a nightmare dealing with them. Just last weekend, it locked up again while playing at church and I had to reset it to get it back on while the other instruments covered for me. This would be an embarrassment if I am the only instrument playing when this happens. I cannot trust this keyboard in a live setting any more and have purchased a Yamaha to replace it. It's still under warranty, but the chance of getting this intermittent problem fixed before it runs out is probably impossible. I sent an email to Tech support, but as I expected, they have not responded.
Overall:
I had to purchase another keyboard due to the unreliability of the QS8.2. I purchased an Yamaha S08 for a replacement. I wish I had known that Alesis was no longer the same company I purchased my original QS8 from before I bought the 8.2.
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