Monday, August 5, 2013

Monroi vs PlyCounter

The concept of an electronic chess notation books has been around for a long time. For a while, the only one of its kind was the Monroi. However, in the past couple weeks a competitor has emerged: The Plycounter, which just recently got its USCF certification, appears to give the same features for a slightly lower price. I will give a detailed comparison below.


Price:
Monroi: $359
Plycounter: $169
Winner: Plycounter

Features:
Monroi: The Monroi can broadcast games live, notate games, and review past games.
Plycounter: Can do most of the same things as the Monroi, except broadcast games.
Winner: Monroi

Interface:
Monroi: The Monroi has a sleek silver color. Faceplates in different colors are available. The majority of the program itself is black and white.
Plycounter: The Plycounter is black. I am not sure yet if they have customizable faceplates or things like that. The color of the program is a light blue.
Winner: Your opinion

General Tech Specs:
Monroi:
Dimensions: 3.18 in (W) x 4.96 in (H) x 0.71 (D)
Weight: 200 g
Flash memory: 4 MB, stores more than 50 games
Display: Color, 240 x 320
Plycounter:
Dimensions: 4 in x 2.5 in x 0.75 in
Weight: 121 g
Capacity: 2 GB, stores more than 5 million chess games
Display: 2.8 diagonal, 240 x 320 resolution

Verdict:
In conclusion, if you do not need something that looks perfect, but does its job very well, I would recommend the Plycounter because it is cheaper, has more storage, and has a easier transfer method. Thank you for reading this, and if you are considering getting one of these, I hope you take my review into account!

The Monroi...

And the Plycounter.

1 comment:

  1. I bought several plycounters - 2 have broken around the year mark. Customer service does not respond. Not happy about it!!

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