Re: 32sii increased availability on Ebay (?) Message #6 Posted by brian heally on 14 Nov 2005, 12:58 p.m., in response to message #1 by ECL
I agree with the others-don't get the silver bezel 32sii. A few years past I tried to replace my old 32sii because some keys were loosened, probably the result of being dropped several times, and having stacks of books fall on it. Once it got speared by an aluminum stick file. But it still kept on working. This is one of the earlier units from Singapore with the double shot keys. I ordered a new one from HP, and was horrified over what they had done to the 32sii. The choice of green and "lilac" colors is unexcusable, and the quality was way down, with numerals painted on the keys, and many of the keys also make annoying snapping sounds. I then got myself an older version of the 32sii on ebay for about $150, but this was berfore the 33s came out.
Now that HP has dealt with decimal point and keyboard issues, I consider the 33s a usable machine, and it is now my preimary use calculator. I still don't like the color scheme or the slanted keys-bad styling gimmicks. However, I find the green and purple of the revised 32sii to be more distasteful than the color scheme of the 33s, because the 32sii started out as a well designed and quallity machine, and then was taken downhill by degrading quality and design. At least with the 33s, the trend is one of improvement. I compare the choice of HP to change the color scheme and quality of the 32sii to the choice of Coca-Cola to come up with New Coke-a dumb move that almost nobody liked. At least Coke listened and did away with New Coke. On the other hand, I am grateful that HP still makes a basic RPN calculator, and the 33s is way better than nothing at all or getting ripped off on ebay.
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