Hello!
With all the "best calculator ever" threads abunding, I thought it was time for the contrary (didn't find any such thread through the search function).
Why this question? Because yesterday, I received an HP-10BII. Not that I care much about financial calculators or calculators with LCDs, but like everybody else here, I still dream my dream of one day owning a specimen of each hp calculator model. Yes, I know, there is nothing more dis-illusioning than a dream come true, but one keeps trying anyway :-)
So here it is, the worst, by far! calculator I have ever come across: The HP-10BII. Never have I seen such a cheap, flimsy piece of equipment, such a large step back from its predecessor (HP-10B, a solid and well made calculator). Everything about it looks cheap (even the "metal", or wahatever it is, trim around the display and the two top rows of keys), sounds cheap, feels cheap. Several segments of the display are not working anymore (the reason why I got it for one Euro - and this still is one Euro too much) and according to the previous owner he has used it only two ore three times before the display failed, out of warranty of course.
I have also some of the other Chinese made hp calculators (6S, 9S, 9G, 30S, 33S) and they all are about worth what you have to pay for them - but the 10BII is in a class of its own. If I was an hp official, I would try to buy them all back from the market, bulldoze them into pieces and use the plastic to make 12Cs out of it.
Sorry, I had to say this and now I feel better :-))
(And a lot more better, because this morning I got an Elektronika MK61 (Soviet RPN programmable) that looks and feels a litte cheap too and has a little display problem as well, but it is nearly 20 years old and very special in many ways.)
Greetings, Max
Edited: 23 Mar 2007, 10:38 a.m.