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I just received a HP-10bII I intend to use at work. I was just a wee bit apprehensive about the quality of the product. I must admit I'm impressed: the unit feels solid in the hand, it's lightweight and it's beautiful. The processor feels sluggish though...

Of course it's not RPN but it's ok.

The only head-scratching design flaw that jumps at me is having to use the shift button in order to use parenthesis...

The parentheses are a carry over from the original HP 10b back in the late 1980s. This model functions EXACTLY the same as that original model in order to be an exact duplicate. Sadly, that means no algebraic hierarchy and shifted parentheses. Just the way it is.

Why didn't HP upgrade this model to add that stuff? They did...it is called the HP 20b. ;-)

Much, much more bang for your buck for the 20b than the 10bII, IMO.

Why were the parentheses shifted and why was algebraic hierarchy left off the original HP 10b? I can ONLY guess that someone inside HP felt that "business" people don't do real math or that hierarchy might confuse them.

GREAT news is that the internal HP people have been disabused of that notion. Newly designed business calculators from HP that have algebraic have hierarchy. Yay!