The Star Sapphire has the same program, processor, ROM, RAM and opening book as the Novag Star Diamond. That machine is included in my Strong Group Two. You can find a webpage about it here (link), including some background about both machine’s three year delay getting to market. I did intend to include the Star Sapphire with the Star Diamond in Strong Group Two. One is a conventional tabletop press sensory chess computer with chesspieces and the other a pocket sized portable with touch screen, so there is sufficient difference between them to make playing both against the other machines of interest. However the Star Sapphire stopped working at the time I was making up the groups so was left out. It is working perfectly now, but too late unless another chess computer drops out.

I will not repeat the three year delay story here, but that delay and the associated production decisions had a more profound effect on the Star Sapphire than they did on the Star Diamond. Below is Eric Hallsworth’s description of the Star Sapphire when it was first announced in Spring 2000. Remember, this was before mobile phones had colour or touch screens. His enthusiasm for the large bright touch screen with clear chess graphics, that Novag apparently intended, comes across loud and clear, and it is the reason that many of his readers will have decided to buy one.

Star Sapphire (£269-289?) - new super-strong portable, pictured below. That’s right! There’s an on-screen playing board and you use a soft-touch pen to select features etc. and move pieces on-screen! The Star Ruby and Star Sapphire share this much sought-after and superb feature, and these will be the portables of the future! Measurements are 11.5 x 9 cms and the body is anodized metal. Opening book 200,000, fast processor, hash tables and the strongest Novag ever. The Star Sapphire will also have a facility for attaching it to Novag’s two new boards.

Whatever Novag intended, what they ended up with is a murky mud and green screen with crude graphics which can be difficult to read in dull light, and sometimes tricky in bright light because of reflections. When the backlight is on it is easy to see the pieces but the limited distinction between dark and light squares disappears, and I suspect the backlight runs the three AAA batteries down quite quickly. Of course to play a screen-based portable the clarity of the chessboard and controls is all important. In this Novag made a complete mess of what could have been a classic chess computer for its day.

In the circumstances it is difficult to think about the positives, but there certainly are a number of positives to the Star Sapphire. Firstly chess strength. It is still by some way the strongest portable dedicated chess computer ever built. Though in an age of phones, tablets and other gadgets with strong chess programs this is not the boon it once was. The Star Sapphire is more configurable than other portables and has a complex menu system which when mastered gives easy access to all the features. The stylus, the flip-back cover protecting the screen, the case and serial connector were all good features, for the time. Lastly the price at £179 was much lower than originally planned £269 - £289.

Eric Hallsworth reviewed the Star Sapphire in December 2003. He dealt with the screen issue like this - “......less agreeable was the sight of the final display screen and chess figures....These are not of the same high quality as those still being shown on the Novag website, as well as on the actual box containing the Star Sapphire. I immediately took my own photos of the real thing and posted one on my website. The fact is that to get a high quality screen with really good chess piece representation would require dot matrix technology and regrettably this would heavily increase production costs.”

In these much less forgiving days of consumer power a manufacturer doing this sort of thing, particularly the website trick, would be torn to shreds.

For comments on the Star Sapphire’s playing style and strength please see the Star Diamond webpage.
 

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