Is the Grandmaster chess computer, by Excalibur, a good product or not?

Answer 1

I bought the Excalibur Grandmaster online from chessusa.com which is a company I highly recommend buying from. Their correspondence was awesome! They really do aim to please!

The following is quoted from a letter I sent to chessusa.com describing the problem I had with mine. I shipped it back to them and ordered the more expensive Novag Citrine chess computer which, though smaller, works very well and is supposedly a slightly stronger opponent. The underside of the Grandmaster was made of an almost flimsy cardboard material which I thought was a little cheap. The Novag is very solid and attractive. It claims to have a PC connectability where moves can be recorded in a move list format, but mine failed to record some of the moves. Novag invited me to send the unit back to Japan shipping-free and they would look into the problem. I decided the PC move list thing wasn't worth the trouble and just kept the unit as is. I love playing it. The LED indicators on the board are much nicer to work with than reading the moves off of an LCD display. For PC use, I've ordered the DGT chess set which is way expensive but hey...I LOVE chess! Here's that letter:

I got the Excalibur Grandmaster Computer from Chessusa.com. I love the size and the auto-sensor thing and it looks great. But on my second game on level 6, it locked up at move #12. I did an "all clear" button push and played the same moves again and the same thing happened. Then I "took back" move 12 and switched the level to level 4 and played the move back in and the computer went into thinking mode forever without making it's reply. Here are the moves:

ME GM

e4...............c6
Nf3..............d5
h3................PxP
Ng5.............Nf6
Bc4.............e6
0-0...............Bc5
a3...............0-0
b4................Qd4
PxB..............QxR
Nc3..............b5
Bb3..............Rd8
a4................GLITCH!!!!!


>>>END OF LETTER<<<<<

The reply I got from chessusa.com was that there were some quality issues with the Excalibur product line. But in all fairness to Excalibur, the reason I ordered one in the first place was because I had seen one that a friend of mine had and his worked just fine. He even played the moves on his unit that locked mine up and his had no problem.

I guess if you get one that works from the get go, you'll really enjoy it. My friend really likes his. But I will not buy another Excalibur product because I had their palm sized LCD chess computer go bad also. It worked fine when I first got it. But I took the batteries out and stored it safely in a drawer for 6 months. When I tried to play it again the display was not working properly. That just shouldn't have happened! So, I don't trust Excalibur.

I hope this was somewhat helpful. You may want to get another opinion from the good folks at chessusa.com. They seem to really know their stuff!

Good luck and "castle early!"

Answer 2

Excalibur Grandmaster Chess Computer

Answer 3

I don't know of that exact computer, but Excalibur generally makes excellent and reliable products.

Answer 4

Well, I've not used it, but I checked epinions.com and found a single review for it at 4 stars out of 5 - Sounds like it's a quality product.

I've attached the link to the review below...

Orion

Answer 5

The answer depends on what you're looking for: low price, popularity, or strength.

Answer 6

No, don't play chess...play FPS.

Answer 7

hmm. it's hard to say