HP 17bII+ Financial

Good quality (for 'made in China' HP) – The key press is soft, with a confirming click but no hollow sound. Key press is much better than on my HP-50G. The keys also have the classic HP shape and action - bevelled front edge, hinging from the back of the key on pressing. The physical quality is at the top of HP's modern day made-in-China scale. Actually, typing this review has made me pick up the calculator and rigorously scrutinise aspects like evenness of key clearances in fascia plate, size and evenness of gaps where two surfaces mate (eg battery compartment cover, screen surround, infrared printer port) and I really have to say, the tolerances are very tight. I would say Japanese/German quality on the tolerances. The back and sides of the calculator are made from a plastic which will feel cheap to owners of pre-China machines. Who knows, maybe it's an environmentally conscious recycled plastic and we should all learn to love it. A minor annoyance is that HP China never seem able to stick their serial numbers on with anything approaching precision (always on an angle and off to left or right of the serial number box on the back). Maybe the greater annoyance is that the serials aren't actually engraved (with precision) on the back of the case. You see this with every serial stickered HP calculator. The 17BII+ key layout is very simple and uncluttered (nearly to the point of making the calculator look like it can do little more than add, subtract, multiply and divide). The on-screen menus cleverly keep the complexity off the keyboard. The machine has good pre-programmed time-value-of-money functionality. Statistics side is OK but lacks a pre-programmed population standard deviation (only has sample standard deviation). The solver functionality allows you to type in pretty much any equation, save it by name then enter in values for the named variables (except for the one that you want to calculate) and it will calculate the value of the variable for which no value is entered. The solver can use conditional statements (IF-THEN-ELSE), logical (NOT, AND, OR, XOR) and relational operators (eg <,>, =, !=). There are date and time functions, logs, natural logs etc as well as alarms and appointments functionality. The 300+ page hard copy manual is a welcome inclusion as is the nice case (vinyl outer, felt inner). I was lucky to see this calculator at Officeworks, reduced from just under $200 (which is way over the odds) to $100. Got the last one. Great key feel. Huge 'hidden functionality'. Good manual. Good quality. Only $100. Doesn't have population standard deviation pre-programmed.

Great functions, crappy design – Everything works on this calculator, except for the metallic cover. The cover constantly pops up above the screen, and the glue used to hold it in place is obviously not up to the task. I have had this for only a few days, and it works fine and is nice to use, apart from the poor casing design. For the price I paid ($150 AUD incl shipping) I would expect better quality, but having been burnt in the past with a dodgy HP laptop, I should have known better. I didn't want to return it as i needed it to study for an exam, and have had to make do with some gaffa tape on a brand new calculator. easy to use functions crappy design, falling apart straight out of the box