last modified 6/05/06
Well, gosh, it finally arrived. I am now the proud owner of A Novag Star Ruby. I've been playing with it for 2 weeks now, so I'll just share some initial impressions as well as some photos. Externally, It's essentially a Star Sapphire with a maroon plastic case instead of a blue one (hence the term ruby ). Oh sure, there are a few external differnces. Noticeably absent are the serial port at the top of the unit and also the ac adapter outlet. In an nutshell, Novag has essentially taken all the "fluff" out the star sapphire in creation of the star Ruby. Gone now are the user programmable opening book and print/video out functions. It will only save the game currently in memory as you cannot save any additional games. Perhaps most importantly, The Star Ruby does not come with the handsome PDA style carrying case.
Don't dismiss the Star Ruby as simply a weaker, less featured version of its older sibling. Novag did improve the cryptic sapphire chess piece icons in the star ruby , most notably the bishop. It no longer looks like a Martian with antennae. It now looks like pawn with a "cap" and is now easy to distinguish from a pawn, and from the other pieces as well. The other pieces are now easier to distinguish as well. The screen now has adjustable contrast , but it ranges from complete blank to "needs a little more" at its highest setting. The advantage of having a little less contrast is the absence of "ghost squares" . That is squares with no piece on them which you can discern the lcd elements which compose the pieces. (Did that make sense to you ??) It's more of problem with the star sapphire, and with the Saitek Cosmic Chess. With the latter, on the highest contrast setting, the board is nearly uniformly lit up making it nearly unplayable. Finally, the Star Ruby's lower right square is light as opposed the star sapphire's which seemed to vary depending on the lighting.
I did find that it takes some viewing angle tweaking to get the best view of the pieces on the star ruby. It's best to look at screen from below, almost as if over a real board. When looking straight down on the unit, the pieces have a little less contrast. All in all though, I like this screen better than the one on the Star Sapphire save one detail. That would of course be the missing backlight which is on the sapphire only !. Once again I have solved this problem by adding an inexpensive booklight.
So far I have only played it on the lowest level, and I can tell you that it's pretty easy compared to the Star Sapphire at its beginning level. It plays very fast, just like it's big brother. It seems to be playing the same openings repeatedly. (like I can't coerce it into a Petroff for instance). But admittedly, I need to play it at higher levels to see what it will do. It's rated at 2330 elo so I'm sure it will smoke me. In Summary it is a Star Sapphire with the following features absent: 1) smaller opening repertoire 2) no leather case ! 3) No backlit screen 4) no serial port 5) no ac adapter port 6) no game rating system 7) No video out function 8) No saving games 9) No user programmable openings. Then again, it has a better screen and piece icons.
It sounds like they took out a lot, which they did, but for patzers like myself most of those functions were "fluff" that I never used. In fact I had to look through the star sapphire manual to remind me of all those features which I never used. IMHO, if you're really seriously, into that kind of stuff, you're probably playing Fritz or Shredder on your laptop and not treating a handheld as a serious chess computer. As far as I'm concerned these handheld units are for playing quick games at airports, work, etc. In this regard the Star Ruby performs superbly. The ruby is also a lot less expensive at around $125 vs. $250 for the Sapphire (if you can find it)
Overall I have really enjoyed this unit and I will be taking it on the plane to Toronto 6/1/06 ! (with a PDA case and booklight). If I had a wishl list for the star ruby you could easily guess what it would be. 1) Backlit screen !!! with a dedicated button on the side !! C'mon Novag, even my kids gameboys have had backlit screens for now 3 generations. (The Gameboy SP, DS & MICRO's all have a backlit screen) 2) Rechargeable lithium battery 3) Where's the nice leather case ???
Here's a nice shot in natural light (no flash) which shows how nice the board looks in good lighting !
Here they lie side by side with the screen off so you can see the board backgound. The grid pattern which is prevalent on the sapphire is only visiible on the star ruby at low viewing angles, and even then it is dark green and more subtle than the sapphires black grid lines.
Admittedly, not an outstanding picture, but you can see the difference in the icons, especially the bishop. The pawn "base" is larger on the star ruby which is in my opinion an improvement. All the other pieces have been "tweaked also" the contrast is low on the star ruby partly because I'm shooting straight down on it. Look at the first image to get a better idea of screen contrast.
The sapphire has higher screen contrast that the Ruby, but at the cost of "ghost squares"
I believe this is a good, representative shot of the Star Ruby