Which of the three Manufacturers?
Looking outside the conventional chess set and into electronic chess - which of the three are the best? Is there an outstanding manufacturer of chess computers? Well, it’s all in the eye of the beholder, but we’re calling in favour of Novag. Now, in case the engineers over at Novag are reading this - pleeeeease get the ridiculous price of the Citrine down, and work on the graphics of the Ruby. Other than that - the whole industry of chess computers (and we’re now declaring you the leader - so you have a responsibility) needs better quality components and better quality builds - chess computers are like cheap laptops made in cheap countries that don’t care about quality, they are comparitive crap compared to the build quality of a Dell or Gateway computer. However, It seems that Novag being a dedicated chess computer manufacturer has brought good results in their electronic chess computers.
Excalibur have some good models - notably the huge Grandmaster chess computer and the talking touch deluxe handheld chess computer, but the main problem with Excalibur is that the company itself has very poor customer service and makes itself very difficult to deal with. The main chess computer retailer in the UK would prefer to not deal with Excalibur at all and has stripped most models from his inventory. The two mentioned above are very good models and need to be stocked by any self respecting chess retailer, but the company are really so awful that any liaison with them is impeded by human obstacles. A chess computer retailer in Canada concurs with the difficulty and poor attitude of the company, as does the same chain in the USA. Come on Excalibur - care about your retailers a little.
Saitek are the third - the company has a very good model in the ‘Expert’ with the exception of cheap plastic pieces that bring the model down in quality perception. The Maestro is also fairly good. However the company has too many issues with build quality to be in the lead. Whilst they have some regard for the value of customer service, too many models fail through poor build quality for the company to be taken seriously - and to make it worse, rumours persist that their best model is being retired - the ‘Expert’. They seem to be on a death wish.
Keep the lead Novag - but please improve build quality, the Citrine is too expensive, and the ruby graphics are awful. Excalibur - you stink! Companies like you fail - we hope you don’t and hope you begin to care a little about your retailers. Saitek - quality, quality, quality - please create some reliability, some greater quality, some reduced failure liability. Improve the graphics on the Maestro. And don’t retire the Expert.