Things like this, no fully featured sequencer on board (mind you, still not sure why anyone in the 21st century wants an onboard for anything other than playback or simple editing).

Spec's out more like a stripped down GW-8 in a module format.

Still no MOTL or TOTL arranger gear. Roland have gone low end, bigtime.

Things like this, no fully featured sequencer on board (mind you, still not sure why anyone in the 21st century wants an onboard for anything other than playback or simple editing).

If the GW-8 or Prelude don't already float your boat, I doubt this (unless it's the form factor alone) will...

The thing is, there isn't a single sequencer in any keyboard at any price that even comes CLOSE to the speed and power and sheer ease of use of a software sequencer. Any MIDI sequencer will run on the cheapest of laptops (if you don't use audio), so it's not like physical proximity to a tower static setup is needed.

It just strikes me that onboard versus laptop sequencers is like comparing a low rez point and shoot camera with a 1080p TOTL digital camera/camcorder. You can record little snapshots, or arranger capture dead easy. But you want to polish it, or turn out a fully realized production, it's just not the tool for the job.

I like having sequencers onboard, don't get me wrong. But when the time comes to turn it into a full production, trying to do any detail editing on a tiny screen with no full piano-roll and list capabilities, that's frustrating as hell.

The industry moved away from onboard sequencers decades ago. Yes, they're handy for remote capture of ideas, and yes, they ought to have fairly decent editing, but I haven't seen anything for 20 years or more in ANY keyboard that has even a tiny fraction of the power and ease of something like Cubase...

And don't kid yourself that using an onboard sequencer IS 'getting away from a computer'. All they ARE are computer sequencers, just built-in. But really BAD ones!