Side by Side Comparison of: Arachnid vs Viper by GLD Products

Got this board based on the price and reviews and am not disappointed at all. Installation was easy and the instructions give you the proper measurements for where you need to drill your pilot holes to put the board at regulation height.The darts that come with the board seem pretty decent, but I haven't played with them extensively. Nice to have spare darts for friends to come over and play though.I have been using my 18g darts with this board and they work just fine. They do hit the board a little bit loud, but part of that is just the way I throw. Just don't play at night if you have light sleepers around.For me, it seemed as though there was a break-in period for the board. My first shots stuck in very hard and were difficult to remove, even broke one tip off in the board. After hours and hours of playing, I don't have to get a workout pulling my darts out anymore.All in all, great quality dartboard. The 650 gives you great quality with a decent price.

Lots of fun, like that it shouts out commands and keeps score, makes playing a game real easy and you don't have to keep track of score on paper.

We Are LOVING this board.I learned to play darts on the arachnid machines that you feed cash to, at the bar. I used to play often with friends and really enjoyed the experience. I was looking for that same feeling in purchasing a board for home use.The large machines at the bars are usually made by this same brand so I was hoping for the same quality and feel. I am pleased to report that I did get the quality and feel I was looking for.We have had 3 game nights using this board and are really enjoying playing all the standard games. We like the sound of the announcement on the board and while it is loud, if you have a group of 4 to 6 people in your game room or play movies or Tv (like we do) then the volume is great.My husband and I both really like the darts that came with this board. Others are describing them as "heavy" and resulting in "heavy throws" which make it hard to get the darts out. We are not finding that. In fact, I was concerned about this issue based on other reviews. I went ahead and ordered the "Dart pro soft tip plastic darts, 4 colors, pack of 12". We played with the arachnid darts and had great accuracy, nice grip and NO BOUNCE OUTS or misses. We tried out the dart pro darts and lemme tell ya... dislike! Those darts are way too light and feel terrible in hand. They bounce out a ton and we often had not nice/errant throws with those flimsy darts. I do not recommend buying those, unless you have never played darts before or you want them for guests/roundy children.The display here is great and easy to read once you get acquainted with it. I was a little overwhelmed at first but then we learned how to operate it and it's a breezy. Keep the manual around, it clearly explains the set up on new game/adding players... I am thinking of making a quick start guide for guests.We also really like that this is not battery operated but it is plug in. We happened to have an outlet right below where our board is plugged in so it worked out nicely. Keep that in mind when purchasing.Dos: Order some extra arachnid darts, just like the ones that come with this board and enjoy your board.Don'ts: do not order the plastic, cheap dart pro darts as suggested in other reviews.I looked at other boards here on amazon, some more $$ and some less $$ but I am convinced that I paid a great price for a nice group of useful features and a quality item. Highly recommend!

Unlike some of the other reviews, mine came well packaged and clearly unopened. Only been using it for a few days but have played a good number of games. The board itself is just like the coin-ops at the bar. I can read the scores and cricket lights without a problem. Computer opponent is okay but can be beat easily on highest level in cricket and almost impossible to beat at any level in Bermuda. Still better than playing alone as you can still test your game strategy. I think the darts it came with are pretty good quality for the "included" variety. I have tried all the types of tips I have (the included ones, some older ones, and stubbies). All stick fine with the same amount of bounce out as you get on any board (my own tips are pretty beat up anyway). Mounts sturdy with two mounting points. Has a lot of games, but I bought it primarily for 301, 501, cricket, and Bermuda. I will have to try the others sometime. As far as the darts being hard to remove from board, you need to remove them properly (twist clockwise and pull). Sound is a bit loud even on low but I am glad this does not have heckler as that is annoying. I suggest mounting board on a backboard that can absorb a little more shock than a wall. Here is what mine looks like mounted.Should I have any problems I will update this review, but so far so good.

This board does exactly what you'd expect it to. Very few bounce outs, keeps score well, provides the classic color pattern on a full 15.5" board. The only thing I don't like is that there's no way to turn off the double bullseye to score all bullseye hits as 50 points like in league. The Cricket scoreboard takes a game or two to get used to but once you figure out that the bottom row is essentially the "rabbit", or the highest score anyone in your group currently has, it starts to make a lot more sense. Both rows will flash red when a segment is completely closed.

This the 2nd one I have owned and it is as good as the first so far. The first one lasted almost 10 years of brutal competition between friends and I and yes even the beating the relatives kids gave it. Toward the end the old one was bouncing darts and not keeping score so on to a new one as we take our darts very seriously when the cold comes to the Adirondacks. I would suggest this board to anyone. It is a good board, solid, functional and worth every dollar. It is a bulls eye of a buy!

Great product. Delivers lots of fun for dart games. Good quality in product materials. Audio could be louder. Adjustable audio level would be even better. I would recommend this product to anyone looking for an electronic dart game.

Used about 5 times and works great. Only thing that could be improved for the price is the volume. Very tough to hear.

Good quality dart board!

According to all that have played on it so far, wonderful/fantastic!Best part was not having to keep track of scoring. Eliminated several few arguments on scoring already.Probably would have gone with an 8 player board but felt 16 would never have an issue.

I have owned this board for 2 years, it has held up well and I like the features. There are not many dartboards out there that will allow you to play an odd number of players, which is nice when you have 5 guys to play cricket. I do not write very many reviews, but think this board is under rated, and recommend it for the man cave.

Although this is my first experience with an electronic soft tip dart board, I am having fun. Instruction manual is very good. Score is easy to see. Voice for saying players turn is great. Hardly any of the darts bounce off. Everything is working as stated in the description. The only thing that would have been nice is a template for where to put the nails. It took me a couple trys to get the spacing correct.

awesome board once you get one that works took 3 times (boards) to get one that work been having it for 7 years now and still working good

This is a great easy to use dartboard! The only complaint I have is when you first turn it on the sound is really load!

I like the dart board. The instructions are not too intuitive for some functionality and changing settings. Default volume is way too loud. The darts that come with this are pretty cheap quality and one was stripped (unable to put a new soft tip in) on day one. I ended up buying better darts and am very happy with the board. Would recommend this.

I liked the board OK, but didn't love it for the price. More bounce-outs than I expected. This board does not have single/double bull option. The flashing indicators when you close a cricket number really got on my nerves. Spend a few more dollars and get the Viper Solar Blast.

Pretty nice board. There are a lot of different game options. The darts don't have any uses sticking in the board. It was also very easy to put up (just 2 screws). Overall I am pretty happy.I wish the volume options were a bit better.I seems like the options are Loud, Really Loud, and mute. Other than that, great board.

Being a league shooter I figured I would try to give a logical review:Pros:-Regulation (tournament) size / arachnid colors.-Thick board, braces well against dart throws, very few bounce outs with 16gram or bigger darts. Some reviewers have said it's hard to pull the darts out: personally I love it. Most dart throwers know you have to twist the dart clockwise to easily remove any dart, but the board is solid and catches darts as well as a brand new arachnid stand-up board.-Shows 4 players scores at once unlike most others with 2 score screens, if that.-Next player button only has to be hit once and power button is far enough away that you won't accidentally turn the game off.-Cricket colors (green to orange to red) are easy to tell the difference and I don't have perfect 20/20 vision. Not to mention once you close a score for all players it flashes red so you know it's closed.Cons:-Like most boards, this one doesn't give the option to turn off double bull so you can get 50 points for a single. You can just skip the turn back to yourself, give yourself another single bull and then skip back to the next player to make up the difference...-The sound actually is pretty loud even on Low compared to most boards, but you can turn it off all the way which is nice. The single sounds like bingo as said by other reviewers as well, but obviously not a big deal. If you're buying this board it's not for the great sound quality.-Darts don't always register. The board definitely works...don't assume the panels are bad, but if you use light darts, even 16gram darts, then you'll have to watch and make sure every dart is being counted. The board is so good at catching the darts and not letting them bounce out that it actually stops the dart from penetrating the sensor panel. Not exactly a con as much as an over-pro in my opinion. :)Overall if you play league darts or really like darts and want something of quality without going overboard, then this is your board. The other Arachnid's that are cheaper in the 60-100 range are much cheaper in quality as you can find out through the reviews. This board is perfect at 150 as your not over-spending, but you're getting your money's worth. I've had the board for about a week now, I use it daily, and it works great. It's a good buy, don't go cheap! Thanks for reading.

We have had ours for two years. We are in a weekly dart tournament and our friends come over and practice. It gets used and abused with no problems. Our new one will be here tomorrow we can't wait! We didn't play wellI tonight (translated) we lost. Need our board up and running! I forgot to mention the one that broke we used a lot so we weren't surprised it quit. Bought the same one..

Great board. Takes a little time getting use to the scoreboard.

Great board, I would suggest buying better darts.

This is the second one we received since the first one was defective. The left half of the first one wouldn't register the points. But Amazon shipped the replacement within 2 days, which was great. Our family of 4 has put in a lot of use with this dartboard and we are having a lot of fun with it. We have had a few issues with the points not registering but I am hoping that stays minimal. There are a lot of games on this board and I like the storage on the side for the darts. One of the darts has already broken in half but maybe that is an anomaly. I like that this has to be plugged in so I don't have to deal with batteries. I'm not a fan of the cord running down the wall but it's fine. Overall, we really love this board!

I didn't have nearly the trouble that some had with this board. The one deficiency is the sound is VERY low, but the display is large enough that you don't really need it. I've also had issues with the darts outside the target area triggering a hit, but at least it doesn't seem to miss in the target area. I've not had issue where hitting a 10 on the edge actually triggers a 15, and the double and triple scores have worked flawless so far -- I know friends that have purchased similarly priced boards that don't work nearly as well. You can't compare it to a $200 board, but at the price is decent.

I purchased this dart board because there are not a lot of options in this price point with the features the board had and decided to take a chance. I was pleasantly surprised by the quality of the board and the clarity of the albeit small display from distance. The included darts work well and most likely will last a while but I'd like something with a little more precision than they offer. They would work well for small hands with a lack of strength to throw the darts but a nice set of darts would probably be a good idea. That being said I have seen little downside with this board and it is definitely one that I would purchase again.

This is only OK. It is very hard to hear what the dart board is saying. I should have purchased one I had tried and seen at Sports Authority. In fact the board is not working now! :-(

I purchased this product for my husband who is an active dart player.He rates it 3.5 Stars. Here are his thoughts.- Not a lot of bounce outs.- Solo play feature - AI programming becomes predictable after a while.- Good beginner board or recreational board but advanced players may want a different board.- double bullseye cannot be turned on and off like it can be in higher models

This dart board is very fun, but it is confusing to start a game.

like the board but the computer is no challenge to play. its locked into a predictable pattern

Dart board is great! The darts are less than desirable. The tips don't thread in because they're too small. Three out of the six darts that were included are useable. Other than that I have no complaints with the dart board.

I like the dart game itself, however, when we got it and put it up and used it the first time some of the points did not register as being hit by the dart. I am in the process in dealing with the company as to get it repaired or replaced as it is under warrenty for a year. So far I haven't been able to talk to a person directly. Maybe it is due to the holiday season. I have been receiving e-mails from them and had to e-mail a copy of my receipt as to when I purchased it so I can get an RMA number to return the game. Hopefully this will go smoothly and I will either get the game repaired or replaced. The points that did register when hit by the dart worked good, and the reviews about the sound system not being really clear to hear, I agree with. When the announcer says single it sounds like Bingo. I guess I can live with that. Once we get the game working properly I am sure we will like it. It wasn't too bad to install on the wall either. Luckily where we wanted to hang it on the wall, it had a stud there to screw the screws into. I guess I should write another review after this ordeal in getting it fixed. As for purchasing it from Amazon, it came in a timely fashion and I have no complaints about the ordering process.

Decent product. Time will tell how it holds up, already seeing some signed man of wear after just a few weeks. The #19 large section is not "springing" back like it should, rather its quite loose. We will see

Cons: The speaker isn't very loud, the darts hitting the board, however, are. It feels cheaply made. The "sticker buttons" will raise your blood pressure.Pros: super easy to mount with 4 screw holes in the black "catch ring" where the section #'s are or can be hung from the back. Plugs into the wall so you don't have to go through batteries. Display is easy to see from the throw line. Player autochange changes players 10 seconds after the third dart is registered.

Dart board works good and the hubby and friends live playing it. Downside is the volume is incredibly low. I couldn't hear it and I was sitting right next to it over common volume having 5 people around. I find this a bummer as you can't tell what you hit, or what friends hit. I just feel that takes away a lot from what our old board did.

Over all this is a ok dart board. I would give it a higher review but the on/off button will only turn the dart board on and will not work to turn it off. To turn the dart board off I have to unplug it. I had plans to use this for a party this weekend so waiting on a return is not an option. Guess I will just have to live with it being defective.....

So I've had this board for about a month or so. I placed it in the garage and a couple weeks ago the plastic label covering the digital display fell off. Not too happy about that, because my wife cleans the garage at a frequency of once/per month and threw it away thinking it was garbage. The darts are too light compared to other darts that I've thrown. If you play regularly, you may want to order better darts. Other than that the board works. For what you pay for, my expectations was not for the best board in the world, but was for an average board. I would rate this just slightly below average.

In the question and answer section, it was said that this unit runs on batteries, but it does NOT. The Viper 787 runs on batteries, but this one, the 797 does not. I was very disappointed as I was needing it to run on batteries, so they need to correct this in the question and answer section because people rely on that information when buying the product. Overall the dartboard seems ok, but the darts are very hard to get out sometimes, so instead of pulling straight out, you kind of have to turn them to get them loose. Hopefully this gets easier the more it is used.

Missing hardware

Had it for 15 months, and now it died after limited use. Had hoped it would have lasted longer than that.

I bought this as a gift. It worked great for a little bit. Within a month the electronics stopped working at times. It doesn't always recognize a thrown dart. The dart will be stuck in the game and you can't even manually get it to respond. Then it starts working again for a while. Sometimes it just doesn't add the score even when it says you hit something. Poor Quality!!!

Needs a Power Supply, prongs on one delivered were bent. Didn't work!!!

If Arachnid were selling this dartboard without any darts, I would give it four stars. The board itself functions well and has numerous game options. My only complaint with the board is that the volume is too loud even on low. While the dartboard volume can be turned off completely, it seems one has to turn off the volume every time the board is plugged in, which leaves the board producing its very loud game introduction noise every time.Yet, I gave this item two stars because Arachnid should be absolutely ashamed about the quality of darts it is providing. The board came with 6 darts, all of which broke completely within a week (our accuracy is not that bad). The flights break quickly and cannot be reattached to the dart, as the plastic becomes frayed, the tips break off into the board and can't be removed, and the connection between the metal portion of the dart and tip becomes stripped very easily, so replacement tips cannot be used. For $120, Arachnid can and should do much better.

I am on my second board. The first one arrived with almost half of the segments not working on right side of the board. Amazon was great in handling the return and replacement. After playing on the new board for a couple weeks here are a few thoughts;Pro:---- regulation size board (this was the most important feature to me)---- few bounce outs---- easy to mount on the wall---- lots of different gamesCons:---- after a few weeks of play a couple segments are not working---- no option to make the entire bulls area worth 50 pts like in league 01 play---- the plastic over the digital display is weak, my kids have already put a dart through it---- volume lvl of the board is too loud even on the lowest lvl (minor flaw)Even with the flaws I am going to keep the board as I primarily am just interested in having the same size and type of board that we use in league to practice on. As for the electronics being messed up; I don't really care about keeping score and my kids could probably stand to do some more arithmetic anyway. If I decide to try and fix the board myself I'll update the review with the results. I think some other reviewers have suggested getting the next board up in this line, I would have to agree with that suggestion after my experience with this model. I expected a higher quality product at this price point. Perhaps my expectations were too high, though from my experience with the stand-up electronic boards they can be rather finicky.Arachnid should just sell this board without the electronics, it would be worth it at half the price.

The sound level is so low that we cannot hear anything the board announces and we are less than 8 feet away from it. We had a different brand dart board for years until it finally died and that company no longer makes them. We laughed out loud while playing games like 301 when the board would make sounds or say "bust".I am very disappointed in this dart board because we have pushed the SOUND BUTTON as it indicates in the directions to change the sound level and absolutely NOTHING happens. It is a whisper coming out of the board.

had to return for the 3rd time dart board was defective

Just received it last week, and kids played a few games. Several pieces broke already, it is hard to pull the pins from the unit, and it feels poorly made. I would not recommend this unit.

There is almost no volume and the cord doesn't seem to have a very good connection.

The stickers are all wrinkled and not on straight, and the sound is very broken sounding.

Looks nice, darts seem to stick well enough, but the scoreboard is broken out of the box. When I plugged it in it started up, but none of the buttons did anything except for the on/off button which made it beep. Holding this button turned the scoreboard off, and now it won't turn back on at all. Seeing all of the other reviews about the electronics malfunctioning it seems like a waste of time and effort to send it back for a new one. I took a gamble on it since I was getting it at a discount anyway, and I mostly practice by myself and will just keep score with an app on my phone so it's not a huge deal to me. Avoid it if you want it to keep score for you, and/or you're paying full price.

They didn't include the AC adapter. It's shown as included.

The charger was missing, the sound was bad, only some of the display lit up and the company has refused to respond to my request for replacement or refund. The worst $144 I ever spent. I feel cheated by this company.

We bought this for my daughters birthday. What a disappointment. It arrived with no A/C plug, no darts, and no hardware to hang it. We returned it with a full description of the missing parts and asked for a new one. Two days later, another one arrived in a beat up box with no A/C plug, no darts, and no hardware. We decided we weren't going to try a third time. We asked for a refund. I wouldn't recommend this.

Very disappointed in this board. If u miss a dart and hit player change sometimes it register double 20 for no reason. Darts either bounce out or they do stick and mark isnt counter. Several times i had to physically press mark several times before it recorded hit. And no single / double bull selection :(

Board is fine, options are lazy. Difficult to read multiplayer scoreboard and sound is always on voice...which is a brutal flaw.

Box damaged and missing parts!Ac adapter, spare darts, mounting kit.Piss Poor!!

This product was not satisfying whatsoever! (For me to complain about a product on a review is very rare because I simply never write them.) I had to get the first dartboard replaced because one of the spots would not register. My second dartboard was even worse because we were never able to finish a game due to the electronic system glitching and freezing. I ended up just returning it. To make matters worse, I did not receive my full refund.

The construction of the board is inferior, the face of the display fell off after only the 3rd time we used it. The software doesn't work properly, while playing games like Cricket and Double Down, the score did not register correctly and a couple times the game restarted in the middle of the game. I really wish I'd done more research before purchasing this inferior product. I've had several dartboards over the years and this is the first one that I have been unhappy with. This will be the first and last viper product I ever buy.

Used it about 12 times started getting error codes it's also very thin and your darts constantly fall out terrible product I never do reviews but I've played darts for a long time and am very dissatisfied also you can't hear the voice on there full blast and good luck seeing the numbers. Not worth the money!!! Go with a arachnid for a little more it's worth it

Reviews about faulty electronics on this product are valid. The display on the one we received worked fine, but there was no sound at all. The interface is clunky and not intuitive at all. For example, 301 defaults to 4 players and the board supports up to 16 players per game. If you only want to play a two-player game, you have to push the "Player" button repeatedly until the number wraps around and gets to 2. If you aren't paying attention and push the button one time too many, you have to loop all the way around again. Finally, the bubble type "buttons" feel very cheap and do not look like they will stand up over the long term. This one is being returned...

I purchased this for a Christmas present for a close friend on Oct. 29th and when they opened it and we tried to use it on Dec. 27th, it wouldn't turn on. I went on Amazon to return or replace the item and it says that I have already surpassed the time frame in which I could return it. Useless to me.

I received this dart board via UPS and it did not work out of the box. The board came up with an OE rr 20 message which stands for a stuck 20 segment. After following the manufactures instructions (yes this happens so often they have instructions to fix it) I discovered that none of the inner segments on the left hand side of the board worked.In short, JUNK!Amazon is letting me return it for an exchange of another product. Safe to say I'm not getting another viper board.