Another one for the record: S/N CNA 72105835, arrived today from Samson Cables directly via USPS Air Mail. Was ordered 7/15 (for US$52.99 + US$20.00 for S/H), shipped 7/30 (late shipping due to some arguments about SC's attempt to charge additional shipping costs). Anyway, I paid 10.06 Euro VAT today, and that was it :)
First impressions:
LCD is correctly aligned, even the S/N sticker is ;-) Now to the less important stuff:
Strong points: Nice shape, very nice keys (thanks, HP!!), reasonable keyboard colors (after more than a decade!), comfortabe ways to enter complex numbers. In total the best RPN calc produced since 2001 (though the calculating power per cubic cm decreased). Seems HP understands better now why their vintage calcs looked the way they looked.
Weak points: Silver cursor keys really look like on a TV remote control, plastic housing feels cheap (a more structured surface would have been better IMHO), keyboard space wasted for <-ENG, ENG-> (hey, that calc was meant for professionals - who cannot do these operations by heart, is no), misleading shift keys, glossy LCD window, theta looks like 8 in the LCD.
And the case is way too big to contain just such a calc, but I can add some travel documents ;-)
To be investigated: Function set & grouping, menu contents, benefit of UNDO (??), how to work with this device in practice ...
Summing up: A real lot better than the 33s, still a long way to go for a 42sii. Go on, HP!
Edit: (1) To open the blister pack, I needed my Swiss Army Knife *and* brute force! (2) I've to check for all the software bugs reported here. (3) The handbook chapters about SOLVE and INTEGRATE seem to be unchanged for 25 years now. (4) Mechanical HW-wise, the 35s may be a nice platform for some custom projects (Eric? Pauli? Richard? OpenRPN (R.I.P.)?)
Edited: 12 Aug 2007, 2:18 a.m.