Thinking of adding a chronos GX to my collection. What do you think?

I have 8 chess clocks, but never had a chronos, I am thinking of buying a button black chronos GX.  I never liked the chronos that much, but I think anybody who likes to kind of collect chess clocks should have a chronos too.  What do you think?  Should I get it? or Are they too outdated to own now?

I own a number of Chronos chess clocks with 3 or 4 being the GX.  What I like about the GX is its smaller footprint and size.  It still has a very nice display with good contrast.

If you are considering using the clock for slower tournament play I suggest a V-Tek 300.  I find I am grabbing one of mine most all the time because of its updated features compared to the Chronos.

However, if you get a good price, the GX is a great clock.  I use mine instead of any of my DGT clocks, including the DGT 3000.

I heard the Vtek 300 had a problem with the increments feature, that if you are using increments the clock does not stop adding increment when your time runs out, is that true?  Also, I heard you can not handicap time controls (as in giving one side more time than the other) 

I only play blitz, and I like the buttons on the GX and Vtek for blitz games

I just pulled one of my V-Tek clocks out and the increment does stop when a player runs out of time.

As to setting the handicap times, I really never have had the need.  However, if you want, you can simply start and pause, or stop, the clock right away and then reset the times to exactly what you want.

Maybe Shelby, the designer, with American Chess Equipment, has a better answer to that than I do.

I play a lot of blitz and use my Chronos II from 2002.  It still works great.

Nice to know the clock doesn't have those problems after all, now I have to decide on which one to get, the GX or the Vtek

Well, the V-Tek is quite a bit more expensive.

You can buy the GX at The House of Staunton for $110 with a 20% Black Friday discount off that.

Wholesale Chess has it for $105 and all I could find just now was 10% off of that.  I think there might be free shipping from them as well.

The V-Tek costs $150 at either The Rochester Chess Center or American Chess Equipment.

I own a number of the V-Tek and like it.  I also own a good number of the Chronos clocks, both II and GX.

Since you want to use it for Blitz, primarily, I would say to get the GX on sale for under $100.  The clock is solid and great.  The only reason I can think of why you might prefer the V-Tek is because of the size of the clocks.  The V-Tek is a much bigger clock while the GX is smaller, about the same size as a DGT clock.

Buy the long one. Chronos II

There are none of the Chronos II clocks available from the standard retailers as this clock is not being produced at this time.

Make sure you get the Chronos with the touch buttons (not mechanical).

@eye chess still available on Amazon and Ebay.

The only Chronos clocks on Amazon for sale are the GX models. 

eBay does have the Chronos II clock for sale but the lowest price for a new model is over $220, yikes!

Note that the V-Tek clocks are much less expensive than that.  And with the V-Tek clocks having the newer technology and programming that is a no-brainer.

I own and use 3 Chronos II clocks.  I also own 6 V-Tek clocks and find they work better and easier for my Chess games.

And yes, I own 4 Chronos GX clocks that I use for Blitz and when I want a smaller footprint for the clock on the table.

I also own 2 DGT-3000 that I seldom use because the Chronos GX is a better clock in that size category.

wow, you have so many clocks. I owned DGT 2000 clock but heavy-handed park players broke it within a week. My chronos II on the other hand still runs like new 10 years later.

I have a Chronos II that is 16 years old and actually the one I use the most.  When I first got it I stripped and sanded all the paint off so it has the original aluminum finish.  It lives in a bag with my HoS Liberty set which is Frank's reproduction of the Pinney set.  That one is in Rosewood and Boxwood.  This is my blitz and skittles set-up.

Mine is the blue color one:

Yes, yours looks very nice.

Those clocks hold up very well.

By the way, the V-Tek is built exactly the same.  The aluminum and LCD displays are the exact same type.  That clock is only available with buttons and the buttons are also identical between the 2 brands of clocks.

If they were still making the Chronos II I would be suggesting that over the V-Tek because, in my opinion, there isn't that big of a value difference to make up the almost $50 price difference.

I have this chess set that I haven't been able to identify ( looks like a Drueke to me):

Yes, button version. You can't stop the clock with a captured piece on a touch pad version.

The VTEK used to have the increment issue but it was fixed after I discovered it (if you have a VTEK that has the issue, you can get around the issue by turning the "freeze" function on). You can set the VTEK for time odds by setting the clock for a time control and then adjusting one of the sides before the game starts. 

One really annoying thing about the Chronos GX is that it doesn't automatically give the increment time for move one (under US Chess and FIDE rules you get the increment for move one. For example, for G/3;inc2, each player starts move one with 3:02, not 3:00). For time controls with multiple periods or a base time of at least 100 minutes, you can't set seconds on the base time when setting the clock to be able to manually add the increment for move one. On the VTEK 300, it will automatically give the increment for move one if the clock is in the FIDE mode.