Declining dedicated unit offerings from Our Sponsor

[sje]

I've been thinking about ordering an Excalibur NYT handheld dedicated unit from Our Sponsor and I noted that it has been dropped from the site along with all the peg machines, the Excalibur GM machine, and perhaps some others.

I'm sorry to see the selection being reduced and I hope the trend might be reversed.

[kaissa]

A Palm with Chess Genius/Chess Tiger/Hiarcs is stronger than most dedicated units as we all know. It is also much more portable.

Unfortunately there is no market left for dedicated units. I would be interested in a dedicated unit only if it was a tournament size wooden unit, has a changeable CPU/electronic board about the size of a credit card, and cost below 300 USD.

[sje]

On my last Palm (A Palm TX), the digitizer conked out. On the one before that (a Palm Tungsten), the slider case broke. On the one before that (a Palm IIIxe), the plastic case fell apart.

So no more Palms for me.

[Steve B]

i realize that brand new computers are the most desirable new acquisition but there are many chess computers offered each day on Ebay which play strong chess and can be in very good condition

perhaps 15-20% of the computers in my collection are from Ebay
the others all bought new when released for sale starting from 1977

Try a new old chess computer regards
Steve

[kaissa]

I should have said PDA instead of Palm. I never had any problems with my Palm units, so it looks like we are both at the extreme points in Palm happiness. I heard a lot of bad examples regarding Palm customer service. It was a nice idea, too bad that they lost it with bad customer service and/or bad build quality.

[sje]

My Palm TX was a really nice machine (and was worth the US$300) -- while it lasted. When the digitizer broke, I thought it was just a random failure until I browsed the net and found out that many other TX owners had the same problem.

But more than with hardware quality issues, Palm has come up short in the OS department with a lack of good leadership that would have led to the development of a modern, preemptive multiprocessing application environment.

I don't think Palm is going to be around much longer unless they can very quickly rectify their problems. There is too much competition now from the iPhone/iPod Touch and similar gear.

[sje]

I have an iPod Touch that doubles as a PDA. Unfortunately, the fingertip interface just isn't as good as a stylus interface for just about any kind of productivity work, or chess for that matter.

I was interested in the Excalibur NYT model because it had a real dot matrix display for the board instead of the piece segment clusters where all the men look alike.

[mephisto]

Steve
I also have a iTouch and the best thing I bought for it besides a leather case was a iPhone/iTouch stylus that I use for typing ( this reply is being done with it right now) plus it's better than your finger for moving your pieces when playing chess on the iTouch. I got mine off eBay for next to nothing.
Bryan

[Cubeman]

I made one of those aluminuim foil wrapped around a pencil stylus that you see being done on You-Tube.It worked quite well, but never got the hang of always having to carry it around, plus I had made the tip too big and found my finger tip was just as accurate in the end.I also found battery life was poor when using the applications and I suspect that the screen is a big drain.With music it does not matter since I turn screen off.
I still prefer my trusty iPaq PPC and have had no issues with screen or battery life.I suppose that eventually it would give up the ghost just don't know when.

[sje]

Unlike a the Palms I've owned, the iPod Touch has no place to attach a stylus when not in use. So I'd likely lose the thing within a week.