Calculators you regret buying?

[Raymond Del Tondo]

30b "Business Professional" - Unergonomic case, extremely shiny front side (though not very professional)

28C: Next to useless due to the lack of memory.
(The 28S was the better choice back then, and led to the 48SX:-)

If I may somewhat stretch the term "calculator":

OmniGo 100/120: Awful, next to unreadable display.
Even the 120 with so-called "holographic" display was next to useless
Both models drained batteries like there was no tomorrow.
In fact there was no tomorrow with a set of batteries.
You could watch the indicator gauge going from full to empty.

All HP WinCE handhelds, which means all those with keyboards.
I had them all, from the 300 to the 728, and a 820.
Technically interesting, especially the 720 onwards.
The 300 series (incl. the 360) had next to unreadable displays,
and tended to get broken hinges.
The 620LX was much too heavy for its hinges.

The 680/690 had a PCMCIA card slot, which contained complicated mechanics
to lift the CompactFlash card holder out of the case level.

The 820 had a very weak housing construction,
which tended to break.

All had in common, that they were next to non-upgradeable.
There was an upgrade card for the 320, and IIRC for the 680,
so you got stuck with the WinCE version that was installed.

They also had in common, that I never found a real use for the CE units.
Too bulky, too slow.


From the non-HPs: Casio PB1000: Some conceptual weaknesses:
- Batteries were stored in the upper half _above_ the Display
- hinges were not very strong.
- Weak display