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The new HP10bII+ has arrived!

The new HP10bII+ has arrived!

A complete review will appear in a future blog instalment - I am too excited to wait for that and will just give you my first impressions.

While I love RPN machines, I have to accept that this one clicks more than some buttons in my heart. Three pictures will suffice to see what I mean:

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Look at all buttons filled with blue and organge shifts!

You can see the typical financial keys, but there are as well mathematical functions like trigonometrics, inverse trigonometrics, Hyperbolics, date functions, and several useful additional features, like breakeven analysis (in all the companies I have worked for, the breakeven calculation (how fixed costs, variable costs and units sold relate to reach a given result) is used to predict the monthly results)

Now look at the screen:

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Readability is very high, and the metallic trim looks classy - in fact, the whole calculator looks classier than the 20b and 30b. Key click is miles ahead of the 20b and similar (altough different) to the other calculators (30b, 17bII), and better than the 50g - surprising on an entry level calculator.

Finally, take a look at what I found when I opened the battery door:

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You can see the same connector that appears in the HP12c+ - which means that this calculator may be re-flashed to update software - or to repurpose it. I understand it uses the same ARM processor as the 12c+

At this point in time I have not dared to disassemble it - to check if there are more connectors inside.

The machine has the lower round edges of the new HP generation (20b, 30b, 35s, 17bII+ silver), that greatly enhances use with a single hand (opposed to Pioneer series). although it is substantially thinner. I stress that it does not look cheap at all - in fact, it looks more expensive than the 20b (and has better keyboard, too) and the 30b.

I would still give the nod to the 30b - it can be keystroke-programmable while the 10bII+ cannot.

I have as well a sweet spot for non-menu calculators. In many cases, when you are in a meeting and everybody expects your answer, it is painful to navigate the menus to find the right one for your application. While the 30b keys can be assigned to specific programs, it is more cumbersome to do so. I have long favoured the 15c as my all-terrain calculator. I can understand the 10bII+ can be the same for a non-RPN calculator user.

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