First ask yourself how clever do you think you are to help you decide the computers strength. Secondly you need to decide the cost. These can vary from £15 - £400+, then you need to decide which specifications your new chess partner needs to have. Do you want it to speak to you?, does it have to fit into your hand?, Do you want auto sensory or pressure sensory board?. A myriad of options await your perusal so stay with me for this quick and simple guide to which electronic chess set is the one for you.

Basically there are two types of Electronic Chess Games

Handheld - These stylish sets are small enough to fit into your palm, they come with LCD displays which shows the board and pieces; either a joy pad or a stylus operate the movement of the pieces depending on whether you choose a touch screen model or not. There are also some models which are peg sensory units, these have pegs as pieces and the movements are shown on the LCD screen.

Tabletop - The title says it all, these units are designed for tabletops. They have real pieces which you move for yourself and the computer. They have LCD screens which indicate the moves. All moves take batteries usually AA's and some operate from a mains adaptor which can be purchased separately. The pieces generally can be stored in their own compartment underneath the board and the boards are magnetic so the pieces don't fall off.

Now some of the chess computers have a speech mechanism in them. This is a gimmick but a good one that in my opinion makes the game more fun; the "Ivan II the Conqueror" is a good example on the lower levels he will be your mentor but as you graduate to more advanced games he becomes more competitive and will taunt you to try and put you off your game. Some of the speaking chess sets are a  more conservative teaching aid they don't have elaborate sound effects but they are still as good some are even multi lingual such as "Alexandra the Great" this one can speak to you in English. German or French.

What is Auto Sensory?

On the tabletop chess sets there are two types of sensory board - The pressure touch is where you press down on the square you are moving from and press down on the square you are moving to.

 The magnetic sensory board - this is the ultimate in feather touch auto sensory movement systems instead of pressing down on every square you simply move your pieces as you normally would and the movement is detected. These board types are usually found on the more expensive models such as the "Excalibur Grandmaster" and the "Mephisto Master Chess".

What is the rating for?

The rating is basically the measure of a players strength. There are several main bodies who grade a players strength.

BCF - www.bcf.org.uk

USCF - www.uschess.org

F.I.D.E - www.fide.com

LED Square Movements - This is probably the best way of indicating the computers move without the computer moving the pieces itself. LED board lights indicate where to move the chess pieces usually by a trace of lights. I would say this is a must for the visually impaired as the LCD screens may be too small or difficult to see on most sets. The sets which have this fantastic design are the Saitek "Mephisto chess challenger", "Mephisto talking chess academy" and the "Mephisto Master Chess computer"

What is Touch Chess? - Touch chess is normally in the form of  Handheld chess computers they have a large LCD display and a stylus included in which you play the game with by touching the pieces you want to move with the stylus.

So these are most of the options you need to take into consideration when purchasing your electronic chess computer. There are few more things such as :-

Teach mode, Take back mistakes, Built in chess clock, Hint option for coaching, LCD display,

All of the above are more or less standard on all electronic chess sets. So I hope this has helped and if not then take a look at the table below to see which sets have which features packed in.

Handheld Chess Computers

TM=Teach Mode, TB=Take Back, HO= Hint Option, SP=Setup Option, OG=Opening Games IM=Info Mode

Tabletop Chess Computers