Chessnut Go Shipped Out! And a Little on Chess E-Boards
I got an email yesterday that the Chessnut Go I ordered is finally on its way to me! I placed the order on the 25th of December, and after 11 working days, it finally shipped out. Since it's from China, I believe it should not take too long to actually reach me, unless the courier company they're using: UBI, is slow where I'm located.
I've been feeling some lethargy from using a lot of screens, especially on days when I need to do assignments, work, and communicate using my laptop and computer. The past semester, I ended up not playing much on my Steam Deck, as I felt my body and eyes were so tired of looking at screens that I gravitated towards physical journaling and reading on my E-ink device.
During my semester break, I picked chess up again after many years of not playing. I used to play in my primary school's chess team, and it was fun then, even though we didn't win much. I stopped playing chess completely in high school and university, and I believe stumbled across a recommended post on Reddit that reminded me of chess, and hence I started reading more about it, making accounts on Lichess and Chess.com, and playing a few rapid games and puzzles here and there.
I stumbled across a video by Al Su Chess, where he showed this product called the Chessnut Air and had it playing in the background. I thought the technology was really cool - and went on a deep dive. After watching more reviews on different e-board brands: Chessnut, DGT, SquareOff, ChessUp, etc. I ended up deciding that I too, wanted an e-board.
My two main reasons to get one are:
- I want to play over-the-board chess games. I like the convenience of online chess on the laptop and my phone, but I miss touching the pieces and having to analyze the pieces on an actual board versus the 2D representations on screens.
- I wanted to play with not only bots but with people. I still prefer to play with bots as I prefer the flexibility of my time, but I want to eventually play with more people online. There's nobody that really plays chess around me, and being able to connect to Chess.com and Lichess is a great feature.
I wanted one that was affordable too. These things are not cheap :/ And landed on the Chessnut Go. They were on sale when I went on their site, but after comparing discount codes, I found that the affiliate discounts are actually higher than the Christmas Sale that was going on. So I went ahead and used Al Su's. He is a passionate Chess content creator focusing on reviewing different e-boards and regular boards, and I can tell he has a love for the products he is reviewing. He gives pretty honest opinions on these things and I like his more casual approach to Chess in general. Nice guy from what I've seen, and I wanted him to get the 5% cut if I were to purchase it.
The final total came to about 221USD (it would've been 155USD if it weren't for the shipping costs) which is pricey, and if I could turn back time, I would definitely purchase the board through AliExpress, as the shipping is way cheaper for Malaysia. Stack it with a new account purchase, and it's a better buy for sure.
However, I'm not entirely sure what's the warranty process like if you were to purchase it through AliExpress.
This is their lightest and most portable iteration, as well as their cheapest. From what I can tell, Chessnut has a decent reputation in the e-board niche and provides okay customer service. I reached out to them via email to see if I could get an affiliate link, and they were happy to oblige. I won’t be sharing it here yet until I receive the device, try playing some games with it, and hopefully put together a review post.
I’m hoping there won’t be any major issues since it would be a pain to ship it back, but you never really know with items like these.
Now, if I did want to splurge more, I would love to get the ChessUp 2. This one has a board with fully lit squares, which I think is pretty cool. It has its own AI system to indicate which squares could be great moves, not-so-great moves, etc., and overall, it looks like a sturdier product too.
But alas, I do think it's a little too steep of an investment for me right now for something that I consider a casual hobby.
That's all really for this blog post - I just wanted to write about my excitement haha for my soon-to-be new toy!
Thank you for reading, and if you would like to share any thoughts or if you have any questions at all, feel free to leave a comment :)
[4/100] for #100DaysToOffload