Author: Axel Schumacher
Date: 23:40:53 04/12/05
Hi all, a few days ago I finally received my brandnew Dell Axim X50 pocket PC. I never had a pocket PC before and I must say, this item really impresses me. Of course, I have to share my experience here, after testing most chess-programs that are available for pocket PCs. The Dell Axim X50 is one of the first Pocket PCs with Windows Media Player 10 built in. It transfers and play video better than any Pocket PC has before, it boasts a zippy 520-MHz processor and offers features like a CompactFlash card slot, Bluetooth connectivity, and Wi-Fi networking. My device has 128mb ROM and 64mb RAM. Yesterday I was wandering around Toronto and could everywhere find a WiFi net where I could enter the internet - for free (don't worry, there are many regular free services, e.g. from Telus or Starbucks). Surfing is easy and works without problems. The Axim X50 also includes another serial connector at the base for a charging cradle or cable. The X50 is rounded with attractive black accents and a slight velvety feel to the plastic sides. It is a bit slender at 119 x 73 x 16 mm, although at 167 grams it is not such a lightweight. The case is nonetheless attractively designed with black plastic with silver plastic trimming. The bottom is slightly rounded, giving the whole device a good feel in the hand. The screen is a 16-bit color QVGA 240 x 320 pixel display measuring 3.5 inches. There is no trouble with viewability, even with ClearType enabled. Below the screen are the usual application buttons and the small but usable 5-way directional pad. The power button is top center front and glows green or orange, depending on charging status. Additionally, there is also a blue Bluetooth/WiFi indicator light. The left side of the device offers a lanyard loop, voice recorder button, wireless activate/deactivate button, and a hold switch. The top of the device includes a high-powered IR port, headphone jack, and silo for the too-thin metal barrel stylus. It also includes both Compact Flash and SDIO-capable Secure Digital card slots, which to save space are so close together that there is no barrier between them nor a hinge cover. Still, the Axim can support both simultaneously. I have a 512 mb smart-card installed which easily contains all the programs I want. You can enable full-screen mode, and the image rotates to fill the screen. MP3s and WMAs sound loud and clear through stereo headphones. Although reviewers have different views on battery life, I was not dissapointed. I got around 6 hours of battery life when playing chess with the standard setting (MHz are regulated automatically). The usage time can even be longer if you go down with processor-speed. Pocket Fritz will still kick your butt with 128 MHz, which may be lead to 8 to 10 h chess without recharging. For power the X50 Standard sports a removable 1100 mAh Lithium Ion battery, with a 2200 mAh battery available separately. The standard battery when playing music lasts over an estimated 10 hours. The graphics is just great. I especially recommend Virtual Pool Billiard (Celeris); the graphic is soooo good and playing is a lot of fun. But let's talk about chess. I tested several programs, have a look. First of all, it is sad that I can't use the strongest chessprogram for Organizers, Hiarcs, on a Pocket PC. However, there are already some Palm Emulator betas around. Maybe I can play Hiarcs sor ChessTiger soon on my Axim too? Nevertheless, I had enough other programs to test; here my comments: Program: Kasparov Chessmate Price: 20$ Graphics: Good. Supports 2D and 3D. The 2D board could use more contrast, though. Several different piece and board-sets are available. Board size: Big. Playing strenght: Relatively good. Claims Elo of 2300. Extras: Training text, but useless. Keeps track of players statistics. Comes with a game database of Kasparov games. Rated games. Tutor watching: No. But tutor can be asked. 5 of 10 points Online-Chess: Yes Levels: Free scaling from 500 Elo to 2300. Timimg: Several presets, from Blitz to no time-limit, however it is not possible to adjust your own time preferences. Supports Fisher-time. Conclusion: Nice interface. In addition to playing against the computer at various levels of difficulty, there is an adequate Hint feature for having the computer advise you on possible moves. While this is useful to help improve your game or even help you learn to play, it is far from perfect. Play is smooth and stable on my machine, and because of the modest system requirements it should be just fine on most machines. It has a simple and intuitive interface with a Game Menu, History (of game moves), Hints, Resign, and Offer Draw. It has an multiplayer feature in which you can play others online, as long as you know their IP address there seems to be no online community to participate in as far as I can tell. You can't connect to FICS, for example. Another nice feature is how easy it is to differentiate between selecting a pawn and a larger piece in the last row on a 3D board at the start of the game. When holding the mouse cursor over a pawn, you see the whole pawn overlayed over the other piece so you absolutely know which piece is selected when you click to move. Drawback: No documentation. In summary, I give it 7.0 out of 10 points. Program: Pocket Grandmaster 2.1 Price: 25$ Graphics: Good, the pieces are very good to play with and the board itself can be adjusted just right. Board size: No full screen as I can see. Playing strenght: Very strong. Extras: Lots, too many to count :-) 9 of 10 points. Tutor: Yes; coach and trainings-mode. Online-Chess: No. Levels: Freely scaleable. 10 of 10 points. Conclusion: This version of Pocket Grandmaster sees a number of improvements that are simply great to have, and a number that are truly surprising. You can operate Pocket Grandmaster in one of three modes. It has a playing mode with a wide variety of time controls and handicapping options. It has an analysis mode that you can use for reviewing games, along with some basic database functions. And it has a training mode, that you can use for solving test problems and positions. PocketGrandmaster includes three very good chess engines: Gromit, SoS, and Ruffian. Gromit tends to play a somewhat solid game. SoS likes to operate in slash and burn mode, while Ruffian plays something akin to positional chess. Drawback: there is no ELO handicapping, hash sizes and pondering settings can be used to decrease the strength of the engines, though. There is also a book control option that allows you to set which book moves the program plays: the best moves, good moves, random, or none. And, you can control whether the engine uses it'sa own book, or Pocket Grandmaster'sa. The version of Ruffian included with the program plays at much lower strength than its PC cousin. The reason is unoptimized code (this may change in the future). But as it is, it makes a very good, human-like opponent. Pocket Grandmaster also includes the ability to interface with the DGT board. You can also download a free set of audio files, and you will hear the moves spoken as they are played. Playing mode also now includes a coach feature to warn you when you are about to blunder. Pocket Grandmaster also includes a button for instant infinite analysis on any position. This, coupled with a new annotation dialog allows you to reorder variations, and add move evaluations. Of course, full PGN support is included. One feature that is very handy to have for a portable is the new training mode. Pocket Grandmaster even includes a training database, but you can make your own if you want to. Other miscellaneous improvements include easy e-mailing of games, and context menus below the board. In summary, I give it 8.8 out of 10 points. The winner in the commercoal category. Program: Chess Genius Price: 25$ Graphic: Nice. Clean. Board size: Big. Two sizes. But not full-screen. Playing strenght: Impressive. Extras: Some, but not as much as Pocket Grandmaster. Tutor: Yes, ChessGenius will warn if a blunder / weak move is played and give the option of take back. Online-Chess: No. Level: 30 different levels, but not scaleable. Conclusion: World class chess program for the Pocket PC. Packed with features for beginners and experts. Powerful, compact and fast. Superb playing strength. The authors chess programs have won ten world championships. Features include: display of thinking, Hint, Tutor, Thirty playing levels( 10 'easy', 10 'blitz' and 10 time per move.)It is an organized, well designed piece of software. It is flexible, and can be adjusted for all levels of play. The program has non-distracting chess sets and has a quick response when playing. On my Dell it makes around 90.000 positions per second (on average) and can reach up to 140.000. In summary, I give it 7.7 out of 10 points. Program: Microsoft Chess (Entertainment Pack) Price: 9.95$ Graphic: O.K, but not too pleasing. Has an annoying green border around the board. Board size: Good, but no fullscreen. Playing strenght: Plays decent chess. Can't compete against the top programs, though. Extras: None. Tutor: Yes, after pressing the hint button, it will advice a move. Online-Chess: no. Level: 8 levels; No time-control Conclusion: Well, it's not soo expensive, but it's old and the program doesn't offer much. Many of the freeware programs are way better. In summary, I give it 2.8 out of 10 points. Program: Pocket Chess 1.1 Price: Shareware 15$, but works for free. Graphic: No color. One piece-set. Board size: Good, but no full-screen. Playing strenght: Average. Extras: Captured pieces. Nullmove. Tutor: Hint-button. Online-Chess: No. Level: 8 playing levels; no time-control. Conclusion: Nothing fancy, but plays chess. The price is certainly too high. In summary, I give it 3.5 out of 10 points. Program: Pocket Fritz 2.0 Price: >60$ (incl. VAT) Graphic: Very good. Board size: Big. Playing strenght: Excellent. Approx. 2450 Elo (actually based on Shredder engine). Extras: Pocket Fritz learns from its mistakes and will try to avoid losing lines. You can switch this feature off for experimental purposes. Of course that weakens the program. Prefer Open Positions: With this option switched on Pocket Fritz will try to keep its games open and tactical, going for the kind of positions in which computers excel. Tutor: Yes. Online-Chess: Levels: Many. Scalable. Conclusion: Huh, it offers a good package. Yet, it is expensive. I think you can get the same for less, for example if you take Pocket Grandmaster or Chess Genius. Of course, for aesthetics and serious play it is a must-buy for any chess computer freak. It has nice database functions and you can even search an online-database and easily annotate games. Drawback: Well, at least at my system it crashes basically always when leaving the program, so that the Pocket PC requires a softreset. This is not really serious but very annoying. In summary, I give it 8.0 out of 10 points. Program: CEBoard v2.1.431.1 beta Price: Free !! Have a look here at this great webpage: http://www.zanchetta.net/CEBoard/default.htm Graphic: The board and pieces are good. You can chose between 4 piecesets, I recommend either Royal or diagram. Board size: Medium size. The board can be viewed in two different sizes, however even the large version fills only about 65% of the screen. This is not too bad considering that the pieces are of good resolution. The display also shows used time and the last moves. Unfortunately, sliding of the pieces is not possible, you have to press the start and target square. In the latest beta it also supports landscape view on Windows Mobile 2003 Second Edition Pocket PCs. The window also displays Kn/s and total nodes, the eval and depth. Playing strenght: Well, actually I think it's pretty good. The standard version comes with Crafty SE and the even stronger Crafty Classic 2004 (adaptations by Michael Byrne of Robert's Hyatt famous program) that features all the well known winboard extras. Extras: Analyze function. Excellent pgn-support (It handles subvariations (any nested level) and comments.); it is maybe the best PDA program to annotate games. Learn file. Can write log. It provides a multi-criteria multi-file search feature. It can import a game from the Novag Star Diamond chess computer and has the ability to connect to the Novag Universal Chessboard. Tutor: No. Online-Chess: No. Level: You have the opportunity to play against at least 50 different personalities!! You can chose between normal time control (x moves in x min; with second time control), increment and absolute search time. Additionally, you can set a fixed or random search ply-depth. One nice feature is that the program can adjust the search depth according to your strenght. Hash can be set seperately for main hash, pawn hash and endgame tablebases. Conclusion: Its main strneght is chess game viewing and editing. It also can host engines and comes with the very strong Crafty engine. I must say, this is certainly the best freeware program out there. Bravo. In summary, I give it 8.0 out of 10 points. The winner in the freeware category. Program: Valentin Iliescu Chess v2.0 Price: Free. Graphics: two different board designs; one horrible blue and one moderate interesting "arti"-design. Not for everyone, but playable. Board size: Good, no full-screen. Playing strenght: Adequate. Extras: None. Tutor: Hint button. Online-Chess: Yes; but only via MSM messenger or XML Web Service. This program seems to be Microsoft sponsored. Level: 6 levels only, no time-control. Conclusion: A fully-featured freeware chess game based on Microsoft .NET Compact Framework. And it's FREE. - Easy-to-use interface; 4 playing modes: play locally (against the computer or in two-player mode) or over the internet (against a chess XML Web Service or against one of your MSN Messenger buddies); Save/load games in FEN (Forsyth-Edwards Notation) format; Board editor; Can rotate the board; small size (under 200 KB). In summary, I give it 5.8 out of 10 points. Program: Naughty Chess 1.0 Price: 15$ Graphics: Board, what board? (No, the board looks actually O.K) Board size: Big. Playing strenght: Around 1800 Elo IMHO. Extras: ehem.... Tutor: Njet. Online-Chess: No. Levels: Only one. No time-control. Conclusion: The official description: "Naughty Chess is a game with a fun, sexy twist… winning this chess game will unveil the naughty side of your opponent. The better you play the more exciting things will get… and the tougher it will be to stay focused on the game. Obviously, your sexy opponent will do whatever she can to keep you from concentrating on the game… the stakes are too high for her to lose… The game comes with one opponent, Cori, a sexy intermediate player who may still give you a good challenge since your chess skill is not the only thing that will be put to test here! Checkmating your opponent will definitely be worth the sweat!". Well, this game is VERY graphical (the women are spreading and show what they have :-). You shouldn't leave it around with your kids in the same room. Also, it seems their webpage is not reachable anymore. Some extra- add on girls can be downloaded for around 6 bucks. wasted money IMO. Honestly, I do not recommend this game at all; the interface is stupid. If you really want to see naked woman find a girlfriend or rent porn. In summary, I give it 2.9 out of 10 points. Program: Palm Chess 2.0.2 Price: 30$ Graphics: O.K, although I don't like the piece set so much. Not much configurable. Board size: Good size, but no-full screen. Playing strenght: Unknown. The company claims "PalmChess is based on a world-renowned chess engine...". I don't know which one. Any guesses? Seems overrated. Extras: PGN support Tutor: Simple hint function. Online-Chess: No. Level: 6 levels. No time-control. Conclusion: Despite the name, it works for Pocket PCs. BUT...the price is NOT justified. It plays chess, yes, but what else does it offer? Rarely I saw such nonsense claims on a companies homepage, e.g. "PalmChess is the only program for the Pocket PC to support portable game notation (PGN)." or " PalmChess is the most exciting chess program for the Pocket PC." ROFL. In summary, I give it 4.0 out of 10 points. Program: IntelliChess 2.0 Price: 30$ Graphics: Board is O.k, but the piece-set is rather primitive. Board size: Two sizes. The big one is really large, yet no full-screen. Playing strenght: Seem pretty strong. Engine unknown. Extras: No. Tutor: Hint function. Online-Chess: Yes. Chess games over the Internet using ChessClub.com chess server. You can log in either as a guest, or using your ChessClub username/password. Levels: 3 skill levels (Easy, Average, Best). Scaleable time, but doesn't support Fisher-time control. Conclusion: The program is too expensive, no question about that. The IntelliChess webpage was not reachable for me either. However, it comes with 1000 Chess Problems and 1000 Chess Endgame Studies, which may be of interest to amateur chess players, both the beginners and experienced ones. "The best chess problems and studies, most of which, regardless of the level of complexity, being distinguished by wisecrack and ingenious solutions, logic design and brilliant patterns, have been selected from various popular compositions in the course of program development". International Grand Master Yakov Vladimirov, 14-time world champion on the elaboration and of checkboard patterns, directly participated in the selection. In summary, I give it 4.5 out of 10 points. Program: Graduate Chess 1.27 Price: Shareware, registration cost 24$ Graphics: The default board and pieces are not so nice, yet you can change to plain-mode which is a really very good board/piece combination. Board size: 3/4 of screen. Playing strenght: Good. Extras: Navigate to any point during the game and play alternative branches using the Analyse mode, test your checkmate prowess with "1001 Brilliant Checkmates" with the Drills mode, or even master the knight with Knight Sight, with the Chess Vision mode. Analysis Mode: review a played game, navigate to a position and play alternate trees Tutor: No. Online-Chess: No. Level: Four choices, Beginner, Amateur, Average, and Accomplished. Conclusion:Graduate Chess is a kind of tutor/assistant program for the Pocket PC. Very interesting idea. Yet, the program seems to be still in development. In summary, I give it 5.8 out of 10 points. Program: Gnu Chess 3.21 Price: Free. Graphics: Bad; very simple graphics. Only B/W. Board size: Adequate, no full-screen. Playing strenght: Average. Extras: None. Tutor: Simple Hint-button. Online-Chess: No. Levels: Only depths. Conclusion: It's free, it's old, what do you expect? In summary, I give it 2.3 out of 10 points. Program: Hell Chess Price: Free ! Graphics: O.K. In principle, very good if the resolution of the piece-set would be better. Board size:3/4 of screen. Playing strenght: O.K. Engine has Alpha-Beta search with HCT tweaks, Pruning, Killer heuristics, Quicksort move generator, Iterative deepening, Parallel processing possible. Built on "BraatworstT technology" :-) Extras: Lots of tutorials Tutor: No. Online-Chess: Yes. You can play online with your friends or total strangers via Direct Connect or the HellHound Masterserver. Levels: Only one. No time-control Conclusion: An entertaining program for free. Unfortunately, it is basically impossible to configure anything. In summary, I give it 4.2 out of 10 points. Program: Chesscapade 1.52sv1.24 Price: 18$ Graphics: All pieces are fully animated and taking an opponent's piece turns into a cinematic experience as you watch your side crush the opposition with piece specific animations. Rotate, tilt and zoom board dynamically during 3D game. The 3D mode is not for everyone so you can switch between 2D and 3D modes. Board size: Playing strenght: Unknown (it's a russian chess engine) Extras:Buddy list for frequent opponents. On screen material record (pieces taken). Rated games. Tutor: no. Online-Chess: Yes. Levels: 10 different levels. Six game modes: bullet, blitz, rapid, standard, world champion, unlimited time; but nor freely scaleable. Conclusion: Huh, the first 3D animated chess program. But that is not good for the serious player, of course. The 2D board is not very good. You need a fast Pocket PC for this game. In summary, I give it 5.3 out of 10 points. Program: Rampart Chess 2.2 Price: 10$ Graphics: I don't like the graphics very much. Yet, several fancy rendered themes are available (4 sets). Board size: Multiple sizes, includinf full-screen. Playing strenght: Vendor claims "world-class chess engine". Extras: Aggressive mode featuring more frequent attacks Tutor: Hint mode Online-Chess: No. Levels: 10 levels. Conclusion: Medium chess program. Not good, not bad. In summary, I give it 4.8 out of 10 points. Program: Pocket Chesspartner 1.0 Price: 15$ (The trial version is fully functionally for playing; only some options are not available). Graphics: Very nice. The board is big and simple; the way it should be. No fancy gimmicks and no way to make too many changes. It comes with two good piece sets. Board size: large, over 2/3 screen. Playing strenght: Certainly not easy to beat. Lokasoft claimed its engine (LChess) to be around Elo 2200 (on my Axim X50, testsuites show even about 2300). Yet it can't compete with Pocket Fritz, Chess Genius or Pocket Grandmaster. Extras: e-mails games. Ideal for correspondence players. Analyze mode. Just browse through a game an let Pocket ChessPartner think about the game. However, the analysis mode is limited. You can view one line - which often is enough - but you can't copy that line, or save it one way or another, which could come in handy analysing your games manually. For people owning a PC desktop version of ChessPartner: you can create custom books with the PC book converter. Tutor: If you need some help, just tap the 'hint' button. Online-Chess: No. Levels: Unlimited different levels. The trial-version has ony one easy level. Conclusion: If you are not a very good chess player, you will be challenged by the engine. The price of this product is justified. On the other hand, weak players may just stick with the trial version. In summary, I give it 7.5 out of 10 points. Program: OlmiChess 2.61 Price: between 5$ and 15$, depending on vendor Graphics: Actually quite nice. The pieces are easy to play with. Board size: Very large. Nice. Playing strenght: Not applicable. You play only via FICS against other people or remote computer engines. Extras: Any kind of Internet connection is supported. Cradle, modem, WLan, cellular phone, GSM/GPRS/CDMA-modem - anything will do! Viewing the players' list, their ranking and selecting your opponent; Tutor: No. Online-Chess: Yes. It uses the popular public server FICS (Free Internet Chess Server). You can register at the server, but you don't have to. You can always enter the server as a guest. There's players' rating available, you can even watch and analyze other people's games, as well as continue an interrupted game, if you like. Levels: Conclusion: OlmiChess is a small Pocket PC program for those, who are tired of playing with an emotionless computer intellect. Still, - it would be better if the program wouls also allow to play against an engine. Note: The program is not easy to uninstall. In summary, I give it 4.6 out of 10 points. Program: MobileChess 2.0 Price: 25$, free to try Graphics: The graphics are in general very good. Nice design. Yet, there are no possibilities to customize. Board size: Large, everything is clear. Playing strenght: Average. Extras: Real-time chat. USCF ranking system. Over 20 clock settings for online play Tutor: No. Online-Chess: Yes. Supposed to connect to FICS, yet it didn't work for me. It showed me only the possibility to connect to ID games server and there where nobody. I couldn't pick FICS. Either I couldn't connect at all (error message) or th 'players' and games window showed up, but nothing in there. Levels: 8 levels Conclusion: MobileChess is a multi-player game for Pocket PC. It connects to a large chess community, FICS, where your find hundreds of users online. Comes with player-to-player games, strong computer play with all features you might expect, real-time chat, and PGN chess databases. In summary, I can't gove it any points, because I can't judge. It didn't work properly for e (trial version), which shouldn't happen with a commercial product. Not tested: 9.95 Chess (9.95$); Cascata Chess (14.95$); Travel Collection 1.2; Pocket GNU Chess 2004 (2$); Chess Professional 2.00F(037)(10$); Championship Chess Pro Board Game 1.14 (20$); Pocket Crafty 2004 (2$); International Chess 1.0 (9$); Silke Chess 1.1 (6$); SuicideChess 1.04 (13$); O.K. My tip for the people who don't want to spend money: You may download the trial version of ChessPartner but absolutely download CEBoard ! You will not need more. If you have enough money go for Pocket Grandmaster. You may also consider Chess Genius or Pocket Fritz if you really need a very strong engine.
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