HP-14B

[ijabbott]

(06-02-2022 12:30 PM)rprosperi Wrote:  

(06-02-2022 03:37 AM)Jlouis Wrote:  Maybe is my lack of expertise, but as I said, I'm curious on why you think these calculators aren't good enough.

I probably should have been more clear here, I was referring to the original 10BII and the latter 17BII, both of which share a common physical design, though with different color schemes. The later version of the former and original version of the latter are both fine machines.

You meant the 17bII+ of course.

Quote:The features of these are fine, but the mechanical and industrial design of these are terrible; the keys are mushy, the key labels cheap looking, the case is flimsy and overall they feel like $3 4-bangers, undermining their generally solid features.

Definitely, although I think they improved both the look and the mechanicals with the later iterations by the time the 10BII evolved to the 10bII (same shape as the 10bII+) and the 17bII+ evolved to the current silver model.

Of the three second hand silver 17bII+'s I have (I can't pass up a bargain on eBay!), one of them does have a slightly dodgy button that needs a firmer press than the others to register. I'll give that vote to the original Pioneer keyboards.

Quote:This reimplementation of the 17BII introduced the buggy version of the Pioneer Solver, thus crippling one of its most useful features (for higher end users).

So, these are, IMHO, in the yucky category...

Aside from the disfunctional Let and Get (L() and G()) functions, I actually prefer to use the silver 17bII+ over the original 17BII Pioneer. It feels nice in the hand (probably due to the weights inside the case) and the LCD display has decent contrast.