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Musings and comments about our common interest

 

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HP 15c LE last production run.

It was beautiful while it lasted…

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Several distributors have confirmed us that the last run of HP 15c has already been distributed, and that HP does not plan to produce more.

 

While it has been a fantastic premium product, we have to realize that this is a niche product, and, in the grand scheme of things, completely irrelevant for HP. Any of the other products made by HP is produced in quantities 1 or 2 orders of magnitude greater than our beloved HP 15c; some of them, even three orders of magnitude!

 

I know that some of you saw this coming, and ordered more than one unit. There were some that ordered as many as 10 (I guess that there was some ebay reselling involved) but several ordered 5 units.

 

Now is the time to take a decision that may last for the rest of your life…Seriously now, while if I were HP I would keep the 15c running for as long as it sells, the production logics for this kind of product implies that it may well be the last time that this model is produced.

 

I guess that we did not behave well, as a community, with respect to the HP development team regarding this product. As this community has been asking repeatedly for this product, the development team set to produce it, based on an already developed body – the one of the HP 12c; but it seemed to me a labour of love, because the potential market did not deserve any development time or effort for such a small niche.

 

Once this product had been released, as a gift for us all, there was a lot of criticism on the grounds of supposed low quality. I have and use an American unit of the first batch, and another of the European batch, and both worked flawlessly. Of the more than 500 units sold by us, only three units have been defective. There were criticisms as well about the keyboard, but anyone with experience with the current HP line would attest that it is the best keyboard in production with the sole competition coming from the HP35s and HP17bII. And compared with the original…well, in my 1985 unit, the keys are softer and shiny, but not necessarily better.

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The presentation of the product was as well ahead of any other product - either HP's or the competition's (the anniversary 12c had a smaller box and no printed full manual. The only missing item in the HP15c for a completist would have been the Advanced Functions handbook, itself a masterwork in itself.)

As for the bugs…well, there really was only a bug, which had never been a problem for me (since I did not use PSE but R/S in general in my programs).

 

However, I found so much bad karma on the comments that, if I were a member of the development team, I would know where to put our community demands…

 

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