Digital Chess Computer

The Digital Chess Computer fan club is growing ever more popular, and it's small wonder; digital chess computers are just more fun than traditional a traditional chess set. I like them best for travel, like those handheld digital chess units are great player vs player chess computers, and if there is no one willing to play you can play vs the computer. It's just really easy to pass the handheld unit back and forth when playing PVP.
And I especially like the bigger electronic chess computers for setting hard chess problems and letting the computer do the escape moves, that is loads of fun. I enjoy playing chess computers, that's that plain and simple, there are loads of models to choose from.

But a personal recommendation from me for a handheld unit, would be the Maestro Travel Chess Computer, It has cool features, and It's so easy to use that even I can use it to It's full capability's. The back-lit screen is the coolest feature, it enables you to play a good game of chess in any lighting conditions. What makes this unit even more special is the clarity of the chessmen on the LCD screen. I must confess that some of the cheaper models that are similar to this one have not near the quality that the Maestro, and as far as I know, this is the only one that has that back-lit screen. The pieces on the Maestro chess computer are moved about with a stylus, and the computer moves it's own piece.

For a full size chess computer I would recommend the Excalibur Grand Master digital chess computer. It has a full size 20" chessboard that really looks and feels great. There are two things that I really like about this chess computer. Firstly I like the arrangement of buttons, the way they are placed makes it super easy to set up custom positions for solving chess problems with the chess computer. Secondly, I love the auto sensory board. Auto sensory is a really neat feature found in the best quality chess computers. How it works is the pieces each have a micro chip in them that tells the board not only what powers they hold (king, queen, rook, bishop, knight, pawn) but also tells the board where you moved your piece! And so on and so forth. The only disadvantage is the large size of the computer, so if you are in a crunch for space at your place then a smaller computer would be better. For me though it's definitely an advantage, I always do better on a standard tournament size chess set, with standard sized chess pieces, and Grandmaster Chess Computer provides just that.

If you have any input on a personal experience with a chess computer or any other recommendations on other chess computers, please post a comment!