Chessnut Air full review

Hi guys,

I'm a total chess newbie, but purchased a chess.com diamond membership and Chessnut Air board as my new year's resolution to learn chess!

If you're interested in the Chessnut Air, please check out my full review - I've been very impressed with it. 

I am in no way affiliated with Chessnut, I purchased this board with £169 + £34 shipping of my own money and the opinions are my own.

Totally new channel, so any likes or subs would be greatly appreciated, I may do more reviews and content of other boards

Thanks for this review. I’m in the UK and iOS only, so am really interested in this board, and the review was great 👍🏻 How long did it take to arrive?

Morning, sorry for the delay - mine took about 2 weeks to arrive. Which, given it comes from China and it was over the Xmas period, I thought was pretty damn good!

Glad to hear that, I'm still enjoying mine. It certainly has room for improvement but nothing else seems to come close to its functionality. Lets hope they keep up development as it's only as good as its app...

I am wondering if you have hooked it up into chess.com and are playing games against people online. And is that working well?

Thanks, JC. It looks like the best one out there.

@HybriceChess Finally found your review. That's great, thanks very much. My only question is can you use it for lessons, puzzles, set up positions, the analysis section and other areas. I'm not even sure if it would be useful in other areas. Set up and analysis definitely.

I still have an old Radio Shack Kasparov Aragon which I am testing out right now. I thought I beat it at its highest level, but I may have been forcing its moves. It was taking a long time so I just kept pressing the button. I think it was just out of batteries And couldn't calculate very fast. It seems to be doing better now. I don't suppose you've ever messed around with one of those and might know it's rating?

Sorry if this has been asked before (I couldn't find it in search) but I'm just about to pick one of these up. I'm a chess beginner (been playing for about 3 weeks) and we have a nice tournament board at home. I was looking to use this as a learning tool in 2 ways:

1) Play online chess.com (I for whatever reason play terribly with the computer interface)

2) To save the games my wife and I play and then to upload them for analysis on chess.com (to hopefully give me pointers of where I can play better).

Firstly am I right in thinking these 2 use cases are well suited to the board?

Secondly does anyone recommend the unsellable accessories? Primarily the bag and the extended warranty? I generally avoid extended warranties as scams.. but maybe it's worthwhile? Also the bag doesn't look great but it does look like it means I could pack away the kit and take it with me.... could maybe replace our travel set with this one? any thoughts on it?

Answered the accesories one in your other thread.

As for (1), yes this is the use case. It takes a little getting used to, not looking at the screen and you still need the screen nearby to verify your position - the tech is still improving and is not 100% perfect; and (2) not sure how you would do that , I looked in the iOS app and did not see a way to export the game. I think there is a way to do it if you connect to a PC though. This might give you some details: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1vqmR5d5duuDNAH-jIw532OyLJBxdwY7-/view

And finally:

Also the bag doesn't look great but it does look like it means I could pack away the kit and take it with me.... could maybe replace our travel set with this one? any thoughts on it?

The bag is about the size of a laptop bag not sure it replaces a travel set. My travels sets are much smaller than the Air.

Hope it helps, if you have any more questions hit me up.

You have been super helpful. Thank you. I saw a video where they exported the files - https://youtu.be/EOYW7FrkGTk

It looked pretty straight forward but seems to require a third party app.

THAT'S the one I had growing up! I remembered it was Kasparav's.

Now I'm leaning heavily toward the Air.

Given the comments, most if not all who have been involved in this thread ordered their Chessnut Air direct from the company in China,. . anyone through Amazon.com ?

1)Just wondering about dealing direct for purchase & delivery from both the company and Amazon.

2) Secondly, I'm not clear , but if you simply wish to play solo with the computer, is there an inbuilt engine ?

I can't say about delivery as I guess it depends where you live. I'm not based in USA. As for playing against engine - this is not inbuilt. The chessnut connects to your phone/tablet/pc via an app. The app has stockfish which you can play against on the board. I believe an app which is in beta allows you to play against Sfish/ Maia or Leela.

Thanks for the info. By the way, are you happy with the size of the board and pieces, . . I'm certain that you probably have at least a couple of non-electronic regulation size sets 😊

How long did postage take to the UK

I've ordered the pro with premium pieces and chessnut have said due to Brexit they cannot fulfill from the EU so are posting from I think China

Won't you have vat and import duty on top of the price you paid?

I hope not

https://www.gov.uk/goods-sent-from-abroad/tax-and-dutyWorth checking though. I think you will if the shipper makes an honest declaration. Have a look at this website.

Can you change the delivery address to ROI? Then you could get free shipping and no extra vat or import duty as they could ship from EU.