I finally found a new HP 33s for sale and purchased it for $65.00. I was expecting to be disappointed after the commentary I read here, but I was desperate to get an RPN calculator that I could use on the upcoming prof. Engineers exam, since the 48’s are now illegal (kiss my engineering butt NCEES).
I have spent some time with this thing now and I can comfortably say this is a good calculator. It is very reminiscent of my old 32 (before I ran it through the washing machine).
The key layout is admittedly a little bit goofy but does not particularly bother me. The decimal is small but this does not cause me problems. The only other complaint so far is the location of the entry key (this has been mentioned by others). I’m getting used to that now as well, its not a bad place for it, its just different than my 48 and takes some getting used to. Its also only half of the size it used to be. Oh yeah, they also removed the swap function for the stack, which is slightly irritating. There appear to be other ways to manipulate it though so I will figure that out.
I like the two line display a lot, big improvement over the old 32 in my opinion. I also appreciate how they have put the left and right parentheses under separate keys, unlike the 48 where you had to select both right and left perens and delete the one you weren’t ready for when editing in the middle of an equation. Everything else seems pretty straightforward. The buttons feel great, as good as those on my 48 and way better than anything put out by Casio, TI, Sharp et all. Construction feels good and solid and the manual seems adequate (although slightly dumbed down).
The very best thing about it is that it still smells like new HP’s did right out of the box. I don’t know why but I have great associations with that smell. Anybody else notice that?
Anyway, they also had the new 49 on sale there and it looked pretty good to me. I have to find a good reason to buy that though and my 48 shows no signs of giving up soon. I feel hopeful about HP calculators again. Perhaps they did drop the ball for a bit but they were so far ahead of everybody else that people are still catching up. Measured against their old products, this first new generation seems pretty good to me. There is still room to improve, but compared to everything else out there that I have tried, their calcs are still the best.
Kirk