Millennium king Performance Owners

......or is it worth spending the extra on the Millennium Exclusive with the auto recognition?

Hi, the King Performance is a very nice chesscomputer. The King programm is very versatile and easy to use. However the two things that bothered me where the lack of a battery and the very poor (hard to press) sensors. Piece recognition is nice if you like to analyze positions out of books etc. But it's just a few buttons on the King Performance to do the same.

Hello, you might want to read my opinion, bottom of this page.

It sounds to me that the only negative is having to push the pieces but that doesn't really bother me. I mean it's not a real issue as the actual computer and board sound great and I'm only beginning my chess. Especially after reading your opinion @kiwimotard. It sounds and even better option with the new update for the more beginner levels etc.

You both recommend it then?

Yeah, get one.

Though a bit late to the party, here are my experiences and opinions.  As far as I am concerned, I really don't understand the hang ups I read about having to press the pieces to move.  My other chess computer that has a board (Novag Star Diamon) does that and it never bothered me at all.

Personally, I find the lack of a battery to be a good thing because these rechargeable batteries have their own issues:

1. Finite number of charge cycles before they no longer hold a charge (i.e. finite life)

2. These lithium batteries seem to always have proprietary form factor such that by the time they no longer hold a charge, it is likely that the company no longer supports that product.

I see these problems with all my devices - smart phone, tablet, laptop.  The devices become throw-away at that point.  With the cell phone, tablet, ad laptop, they will be obsolete and ready to be replaced by then, but a stand-alone chess computer really doesn't go obsolete, especially one as nice as the Millennium King.

As others have mentioned, the King is VERY versatile and easy to use.  For those still learnign to play chess, this set up is ideal.  For those more experienced, how many players who would own such a chess computer be able to beat it at its 2400+ rating?  From what I see, a player who has reached 2200 seems to be well respected and that rating is looked at as quite an accomplishment that takes a lot of time and cosistent effort to get to.  2400+ is yet again a whole other level.

I didn't choose to get the DGT Centaur because I am working on getting beyond pushing pieces around and from what I read, it gets old getting beaten all the time.  I can beat the King at its lowest level and have years of challenge ahead of me on this chess computer.

So, yes, I highly recommend the Millennium King and have no regrets having bought it.

Tony

Thanks all!

Cheers Tony @tbeltrans for the thorough feedback. Never really thought about that but you're right about the battery charging etc. At least if the chessvolt packs up you don't need to buy a new chess board! Its sounds like you highly recommend it? Is it easy to set positions up? Out of interest what is the Kings lowest level? As I may be needing it!

Since the King runs on 9 volts, you could make a battery pack of AA batteries and the connector plug is pretty standard, so you shouldn't need to purchase the Chessvolt pack unless you specifically want that.

Setting up chess positions is easy enough to do, yes.  I don't know the ratings of the low levels, but I do know that if you have a rudimentary understanding of the game, you could beat the lowest level.

I do recommend the King.  Back when dedicated chess computers were more common, I suspect that the King would have been quite expensive, probably in the Tasc R-40 range since that is the software lineage.

Tony