New HP Financial Calcs Junk ??

[Michael Roback]

I have a 10B I have been using for years. Bought it new, made in USA. I have compared it to newer generation 10BII and 10BII+ and it is more robust and solid. I need a 12C or 17BII and posted in the WTB forums. I had a brand new unusued 12C Made in USA that I found a few years ago and did not like RPN, so after buying it off EBAY I sold it! Now I need to take some finance courses at UCLA and it requires a 12C :-(. I would like to find one but so far no luck on EBAY. I wonder if it is likely that someone has had a new 12C in storage that was made in USA all these years! Can some of you folks give me your opinion. I have looked at new 12C's made off shore and the new 12CP and the fit and finish and keys are just not the same. The old injection molded keys/numbers is gone and painted numbers do not look crisp. Am I imagining this or is it true. Any help or advice would be appreciated. Thanks.

[Gene]

Buy an old 12c off ebay. Best bet.

Ask the sellers what the SN of the unit is...2269A12345 would be a USA make.

Gene

[Scuba Diver]

I have a USA 12C and a number of Singapore units, and they are all of similar quality.

Personally, I have not found any difference between USA-made units and those manufactured in Singapore or Brazil. I would say, however, that Indonesian/Malaysian or Chinese units do have different quality.

If you open yourself up to the possibility of owning units made in Brazil or Singapore, you should be able to find one no problem on eBay.

B.

[Karl Schneider]

Michael --

I agree with Gene and "Scuba Diver" -- the US- and Singapore-made units are of the highest quality made by HP (and Brazil-made units maight also be comparable, but I can't say first-hand).

Overall keyboard quality -- including keys, key operation, and face-printing -- was lowered when production was shifted to Indonesia and China.

I have a 12C (1994) and a 17BII (1993), both made in Singapore. The quality of both is very good, although the case halves aren't fully tight on the 17BII.

The 17BII is much faster and more capable; I believe that I could get you one without manual through a local used-electronics seller.

High-quality 12C's and 17BII's should be readily available through eBay in the US. Ask/look for serial #'s of the form nnnnAnnnnn or nnnnSnnnnn.

Edited: 4 July 2004, 3:47 p.m.

[JDH]

Again, I would have to agree that the USA and Singapore made HP 12c are of similar quality, the latest Chinese version works OK but are poorly made. I do have a new USA made (early 1988) HP 12c in box with manual, case etc. I could sell it to you but you would be better off just buying one off ebay.

Edited: 4 July 2004, 6:33 p.m.

[Richard Parfitt]

If you want a new 12C go to this UK site.
www.calculatorshop.co.uk

[Eddie Shore]

Try Fry's Electronics (I think the nearest one to UCLA is at Marina Del Mar?). They sell HPs and I usually see the classic 12Cs for sale. I'm not sure if they are from the US/Signapore manufacturing plates however.

Since I don't personally own a HP12C (I prefer the 17BII(+) over the 12C), I can't comment from a personal perspective.

Hope this helps.

[westridge_cz]

No, you're not imagining things, the reason why the 12CP has painted numbers instead of injection-molded keys is because it's made by Kinpo for HP. The 17BII+ (not the 17BII) is also made by Kinpo. I agree with what's been said already, the ones that were made in the USA, Brazil, and Singapore were actually assembled on HP lines so the quality is completely different.

[Valentin Albillo]

I absolutely agree. I have an USA-made HP-12C and a Singapore one. Both are terrific quality, with the (very slight) edge going to the USA one, but not by much really, it might be my two actual instances of them.

Next, I bought a China-made HP-12C. In a word: rubbish ! garbage ! trash ! It's not only its faulty cosmetics, its cheap aspect, its flimsy feel. It's that it won't even pass the keyboard test first time, you always have to try a number of times and more or less 1 in 4 you succeed, if done carefully.

I've kept it for collection purposes. But certainly my first intention was to smash it against the nearest wall, and the second to have my money back, pronto !

It certainly prevented me from buying other KinHPo rubbish, such as the HP-12C Platinum and the HP33S, for life. I'd rather use my money to buy a Financial SHARP PC-1421, that can run rings around the whole lot and has looks to match.
That failing (they're quite rare), another USA HP-12C would do fine.

Best regards from V.

[Gene]

I used the 12cp alot when we were revising the 12c solutions book.

I never had a missed keystroke (that's not praise, it's what we should all demand).

I grew fond of it.

Given that it sells for about $75 in 2004 dollars and the USA made 12c's sold for about $95 in 1982 dollars, I think it is very good quality for 1/3 of the price in constant dollars.

If they kept the same quality and same price in constant dollars (which would be at least US $200 or more), the market for 12c-style calculators would shrink such that they would have to raise the price even further.

Not good business sense.

Real question: If I could have purchased a 12cp in 1982 for graduate school with the capabilities it has for around $30, would I have been happy?

Yes. Absolutely.

Gene

[Raymond Del Tondo]

Hi,

you seem to have luck with your 12Cp.

Mine (CN32107416) is just nearly new junk,

because it *does* miss keystrokes,

and this is reproduceable.

And they didn't aven solve the standard problem of

'Voyager compatible calcs': The ENTER bar

needs too much force compared to the other keys.

And my opinion about a 12Cp optical aspect:

I think the calc would look much better if

the case and keys would be dark grey ('anthrazit')

instead of dark blue.

A dark blue case looked cheap on the very expensive Jornada 690, too...

>Real question: If I could have purchased a 12cp in 1982 for

>graduate school with the capabilities it has for around $30,

>would I have been happy?

>

>Yes. Absolutely.

>

Good for you:-)

I wouldn't have been too happy with a calculator

which missed key strokes in critical situations.

Ok, I had to save a lot of money to be able to buy an HP-41C in around 1980.

But it was worth every cent (Pfennig back then),

because I could just type in the numbers

w/o checking every key stroke.

That was efficient, compared to the cheap and no-so-cheap

bouncing button crap of other brands (especially TI) back then.

(Actually the HP-41 had many advantages

over any other scientific calc back then;-).

Raymond

[Gene]

If it misses keystrokes, send it back.

Why is that difficult? How else will a company learn unless consumers vote with their wallets?

As for the color scheme, stay tuned...that will be the subject of my presentation at HHC2004.