I thought I had left a review for this, but didn't see it, so going to write one. If this is duplicate, I apologize.
My primary idea, is to compare this against the King Performance, which I also own, and what I know of other products on the market.
Also note I got it on sale, which of course impacts my cost vs value appraisal
What this is:
Chess board with standalone computer ( no phone required). Display is very nice, as it's large.
Supports two chess engines, The King, and Chess Genius ( from two different programmers). The King supports 960 ( Fisher Random)
Wooden pieces ( see below for my opinion on them.)
Wooden board ( seems to be all wood, vs the King Performance)
LEDs indicate move, so no need to look at a display
Full piece recognition, meaning it knows where all pieces are, and understands where you move them too, and does so quickly, and seemingly accuractely
Ok, so the price is a bit high, maybe. Depends on your evaluation. Realize you get wooden pieces, a wooden board, a pretty nice computer ( which is separate from board,) and it's somewhat a niche product, so you can't expect the price a mass produced unit will be. I consider the price, probably reasonable.
You get two chess engines. For variety. The King is especially nice, IMO, because it's very customizable. Surely you can find some option which is not too hard, but gives you a challenge.
The pieces are not going to blow you away, but they are a bit nicer than the King Performance. The board, packaging ( which is very nice,) chess pieces, and of course R&D and support probably don't allow for luxury chess pieces. IMO, they are good enough. Given that the pieces contain sensors, you are sort of stuck with them, barring major surgery to transplant the RFID chips, or whatever they are.
The user interface is great, and I am picky about UI. The gameplay with the board sensors is so nice compared to the King Performance. The King Performance had some quality issues with the board IMO, and while the pressing of squares was mostly ok, sometimes I had issues. But this board...so nice. So fun to play. Relaxing even, if chess can be relaxing.
When you need to take a break, just hit power button, then hit the green button, and the machine powers down, and your game is saved, and resuming is very fast whenever you like. Really well done, I applaud this. It allows one to play "daily chess" against your chess computer.
The manuals are bit crazy. Because of there being two chess engines, and Millenium having some confusing manuals. The supplied manual is good enough to get going. But you might feel the need to dig through Millenium's web site to get all the manuals that apply to this product. I may even have relied on a King Performance manual, as it was more complete?
You can upload your games onto a computer. Again you will have to brave the not so well designed Millenium site. But with patience, you can find the software which allows you to upload games to your laptop or PC with a USB cable. Which then allows for analysis online, or whatever you want.
I wanted to compare this a bit, to other options.
It's online capabilities require chesslink box, which is pricey IMO, for just a bluetooth gizmo. And some people struggle with the chesslink, if reviews are to be trusted. Still, some people manage with it just fine.
Unless you using it online, you don't need a mobile computer, e.g. phone. I consider this a real plus. Who knows what happens in 10 years with such things. You might find it hard to use old tech with new phones. Stuff changes all the time in tech, I write software, and use a lot of tech, so I feel like I am not a total luddite. Just cautious. Long story short, no phone needed just to play a game, great.
No built in battery. Should be obvious this has pros and cons. Battery pack Volt product thing works fine. Not cheap, but battery packs are not cheap in general.
Computer seems moderately powerful. Of course it's not your 16 core threadripper. But it's also lower power. How powerful do you need your chess computer to be?
I like wood boards. Wood pieces. I think plastic looks cheap. It's fine, it works. But I was willing to pay more for wood.
Note that all these higher end electronic chess products have pros and cons. Connectivity. User complaints about various issues. Cost. Material. Built in battery or not. Online connectivity. Power of computing hardware. Overall user interface. For example, DGT boards seem nice, but they are also pricier than this. And they don't have the handy LED display, to make it easy to play without looking at the board. Do your homework, so you know what you are getting, and not getting when buying electronic chess boards.
It's hard to cover everything, on such a relatively sophisticated product. I tried to give an idea of how much I liked it. Hope this helps.
