[CAJA ABIERTA] Diana electrónica Viper 850

Compared to many of the other "offline" soft tip boards I considered, this dart board offers a slightly more modern interface and more feature-rich experience, even if it's not perfect.

The center display shows menus with actual game names, options, and descriptions instead of just a cryptic "game number" you have to look up in a manual on many other home boards. It tries to calculate your PPD and MPR (for '01 and cricket games, respectively), and when there are more than two players, it allows the remaining players to continue the game even after the first player has won. They even went the extra mile to allow the board to detect whether your dart hit the inner or outer single segment, although it only really matters in a handful of scenarios. There are plenty of games and options, and some of the sound effects are actually pretty satisfying. Bounce-outs have been fairly minimal, and I can't say that I've noticed the board register the wrong segment for a hit.

However, there are a few places lacking a bit of fit and polish. For example, there is a software bug where the PPR and MPR are only calculated for the winner of a game. You can try to view the PPR or MPR for the loser, but it will always show "0". This can be a bit frustrating, since there's no guarantee you'll get to see your PPD or MPR at the end of a game.

On the hardware side, the fit of the segments is more loose than I was expecting compared to other boards I've used, and you can see small gaps between the segment pieces and the spider along some of the edges and in the corners. The center bullseye seems to be the worst one, and tilts outwards a surprising amount from the weight of a dart stuck in it.

We'll see how it holds up over time, and it doesn't have everything I was looking for in a dart board, but compared to everything else I've been able to find on the market today, this board comes the closest.

Unrelated to this specific board, Viper's customer support was very friendly and responsive. They went out of their way to investigate the issue I had with PPR and MPR, and even though it took them a few days to come up with an answer, it was around the holidays and they checked in every few days to let me know they were still looking into it. I didn't get the answer I was hoping for, but I was very satisfied with how it was handled.

This board rocks! Hardly any bounce outs (usually from a bent tip easily corrected), sticks incredibly well, just like playing the arcade versions at home! Scoring has never been wrong on a throw. Can't believe I ever put up with the cheaper boards before and thought that those headaches were normal behavior for soft darts... You can't tell the difference with a board like this, but be sure to buy some decent darts to go with it because the included ones are very basic beginners darts and be sure to use their superior tips (and why not because they are made for the board and not very expensive - $6 for 100). I can't say enough good things about this beautiful full size board! Only con would be not putting thicker plexiglass over the scoring electronics, but I'm going to mod that easily and cheaply with a few plexiglass strips on my own. I have kids, which is why I got the soft darts for my game room, and they're more prone to errant throws...

BRAVO, VIPER! And what an unbelievable price on the refurbished - Thanks!