As you might have imagined by the pictures and the price, the keys are plastic and the sound coming out of the reface speakers is simply bad.
One would think that the sound generated from this device is just as toy-like. But they'd be wrong.
For most of us, the crappy keyboard and low quality speakers were never necessary in the first place - but then how would Yamaha attract attention towards yet another module? I guess they tried to be quirky, and frankly, thanks to the mobility of the device, I've started to carry it while travelling just to play it whenever I get bored. And at the end of the day, I'm glad they took the decision to include these cheap peripherals.
While I can't describe sound with words, I would say that this is sitting next to a Moog One and a Prophet, and it's still seeing use. The limited knob space is brilliantly utilised by having one knob do several different things depending on your choice of oscillator, for example.
This cute little gadget would be my recommendation to anyone trying to learn subtractive synthesis quickly. It just fits so much power into such a small package. As for people who already own quite a few synths - it really depends on what synths you already have in your studio, and whether you're a fan of the oldschool Yamaha sound. As for me, this will be sitting on top of my desk for the foreseeable future.