So I bought a Casio 115ES and an HP Smartcalc 300s

[Brian K]

I purchased those two calculators for the purpose of picking one for my son to use in his upcoming school year.

Well, I got them both and have now gotten around to opening them up, and to my surprise they're the exact same machine under the hood.

Same screen, same buttons with the same functions.

The Casio has a built-in equation solving function, the HP has arguable better aesthetics and buttons.

I guess I shouldn't have been surprised... At least they were cheap!

[Gerson W. Barbosa]

Quote:

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...to my surprise they're the exact same machine under the hood.

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Casio fx-115 ES offers numerical integration. Does Smartcalc 300s also?

[Brian K]

It appears it does not.

[Gerson W. Barbosa]

So it is more like the fx-85 ES, perhaps.

[Brian K]

That may be the case, I haven't had time to really dig into either of them.

I was simply struck by the fact that they initially appeared almost functionally identical.

[Gerson W. Barbosa]

The fx-115 ES has an outstanding numerical integrator, as discussed in this older thread:

http://www.hpmuseum.org/cgi-sys/cgiwrap/hpmuseum/archv019.cgi?read=160194

I guess the Smartcalc 300s would cost a bit more if it were a rebranded 115-es.

[Paul Gaster]

The Casio also can solve a 2x2 or 3x3 system of equations, do some matrix math, solve a quadratic or a cubic equation, cross or dot product with vectors, work with complex numbers, and probably a few other things I have forgot. It's a nice calculator for the money.