Strong Dedicated Computers

Okay?

 Yes, I love the Millennium King Performance. The SSDF has rated it at 2543. You can adjust many of the parameters it uses to create "personalities", the way you could with Chessmaster programs. One guy was able to create a personality that played around 100 points stronger than the default. A new update made available this month added features, and now it has several adaptive modes that will adjust to your playing strength on the fly, as well as ELO levels ranging from 1000-2050. 

Dedicated chess computers are coming back  The best is the Revelation 2. A beautiful board and many features and it is upgradable. It can be connected to the internet for many extra features. The best true stand alone chess computer, that is it can't be connected to the internet and can't be updated is probably the DGT Centaur. It can beat most people. Chess computers are great for practice at home and are much stronger and more versatile than their  earlier companions of the 70s and 80s.

Another bump to this old thread.  The Millennium folks in conjunction with Rudd Martin are about to launch a new dedicated chess computer based on a raspberry pi called the "Mephisto Phoenix".  This works with millennium boards (including new boards) and runs both modern UCI engines (hiarcs, shredder, komodo, stockfish) and 20 retro engines including the Mephisto WC and the TASC King engines.  Details are still a little light since it is not officially released but there is good information and pre release reviews over on the hiarcs.net forums if anybody is interested.

This thread has been faithfully bumped throughout the years

I find the some of the old travel ones pretty good. I like the hands on vs a screen. I have a Novag Sapphire I and Saitek Travel Champion 2100. The TC2100 is pretty cool. I recently have a Square Off and others thru the years, but I agree with python17 - the Centaur has made playing a game by myself fun again. Enjoying it is the most important thing. The Centaur is a blast. I don't get into posting or chatting but had to throw it in because I'm enjoying the Centaur so much. I recommend it if you're reading this and looking for advice.

..faithfully bumped

Get your favorite app with whatever setting you wish to play against, and make the moves on a tournament size board. Problem solved. I do understand what you are saying though.