What about Handmark's Pocket Chess Deluxe?

Price: $19.99

Let me first say that I gave Pocket Chess Deluxe quite a going over. Despite the lack of a complete review here, I am quite familiar with the program and have tested it against both ChessGenius and Chess Tiger. At the moment, it holds a very solid third place in my list. After 20 rated games against Chessmaster 7000, PocketChess Deluxe obtained an unofficial USCF rating of 1706. In the BT2450 tests, it scored a (BT) Elo rating of 1647 (~1747 USCF).

PocketChess Deluxe was the original brain child of Scott Ludwig, and is a significant update to the freeware version 1.1 that was the best available chess program for PalmOS for quite some time.  A ton of functionality has been added to create what is now version 2.5.  Of course with functionality came size. Whereas PocketChess 1.1 weighed in at a cool 29K, PocketChess Deluxe 2.5 is a relative behemoth weighing in at 262K!  That doesn't include the bonus game pack which adds an additional 25K.  Part of the functionality comes in the form of extensive color/theme customization. While not hi-res, it's a great looking program.  It also has decent game database capability that students of the game will appreciate. It's great for replaying through personal games or games of other top-rated chess figures.

The engine is not the strongest you'll find for a PalmOS machine. Before I officially started this review, I wrote to PocketExpress and told them that in the first eight (of what would be 22 games) against ChessGenius on equivalent machines, PocketChess didn't win a single game. They said they weren't surprised and that they made a conscious decision “to target the beginner and intermediate chess players.” And in fact, while it used to billed as “On-the-go Chess Fun for the Casual Player,” it is now “Award-winning chess personalized to challenge new and returning players.”

What about ZingMagic's Chess?

Price: $14.99

Developed by ZingMagic (formerly Purple Software then Cascata Games), Chess does not have a trial version. But through the generosity of (at the time)Cascata Games, I was given a copy of this program. One of the selling points is that it offers a 3-D board view, which really is kind of impressive. But overall, the program lacks so many things.  Here's a list of what you don't get:

• An opening book ("Expert" personality "Cleo" played 1. Nc3 without fail)
• Color customization
• Preset or custom time settings (no "Time per move" or "Game in x minutes")
• Sound indicators of any kind
• A numbered move list

Stronger personalities spend more time calculating moves, so if you want a short time-per-move, you need to play lower-strength personalities. But, on sort of a positive note, the "Expert" personality hardly ever took more than two minutes to calculate a move.

What about Gameloft's Chessmaster?

Price: $18.95

Trying to capitalize on the success of its PC namesake, Chessmaster for PalmOS seems feature-packed. But the number of bells and whistles doesn't necessarily mean that the program shares the strength of its counterpart's engine. Without any sort of customizable "time-per-move" option, I'm presuming that, as in ZingMagic's Chess, weaker personalities play faster and stronger personalities play slower. It says it supports HiRes, but on my Sony Clie NX60, I only see a low-res board. And if you want the "full" color version installed, clear some RAM: the program itself takes 359K, but a required "tutorial" database adds another 542K! You can install a smaller version, but I'll bet you don't get as many features. I informed Gameloft support of this review and requested a registration code to test the program without limitations. But they did not reply.

What about Rampart Chess?

Price: $8.95

Due to the lack of an evaluation version of Rampart Chess, I emailed Rampart Games and requested a full version for evaluation purposes. I did inform them of this review and provided a link to the preliminary version. I haven't received a reply of any kind, and am not even certain that the company is really still in operation. Whether they are or are not, I cannot recommend this game at all given the lack of response from the developer.