Calculators

The 12C has been sold in the same gold on black landscape body since 1981, which makes it the longest running product on this site by a wide margin. It works in reverse Polish notation, which is the reason its users will not switch: fewer keystrokes, no brackets, and a stack you can see. The Platinum adds algebraic entry and undo for people who want both.

• Same model line since 1981
• Reverse Polish and algebraic entry
• 130 plus functions, undo key
• Coin cells, no charging

Solar with a backup cell, 417 functions, and a natural display that writes a fraction as a fraction. Nothing in it needs charging, updating or registering, and the exam boards that allow it have allowed the same machine for over a decade, which is a longer support horizon than any app has ever managed.

• Solar powered with a backup cell
• 417 functions, natural textbook display
• No account, no update, no driver
• Allowed in most examinations

The original, with reverse Polish entry only and none of the Platinum's additions, which is what most of its owners actually want. 120 plus functions, the same body as 1981, and a battery life measured in years rather than hours.

• The 1981 original, reverse Polish only
• 120 plus functions
• Years of life on coin cells
• Gold on black landscape body

The finance calculator that two generations of analysts have taken into examinations, unchanged long enough that the keystrokes in a thirty year old textbook still work. It runs for years on a single coin cell, has no port, no firmware and nothing to sign into, and the keys are rated in the millions of presses because that is what a trading floor used to do to them.

• Runs for years on one replaceable coin cell
• Time value of money, cash flow, amortisation
• No port, no firmware, nothing to update
• Permitted in the finance examinations

The metal cased version of the same machine, with the extra functions the later finance examinations expect and a body that survives being carried loose. Same coin cell, same absence of anything to update, same keystrokes as the plastic one.

• Metal case rather than plastic
• Adds modified duration, net future value and payback
• Coin cell, no charging or updating
• Permitted in the finance examinations