HP 35s Programmable Scientific Calculator Review and Tutorial 

This was the last, decent, non graphing calculator made by HP. I also own an HP50G. My first HP was an HP35e, bought in engineering school in 1978. That was a great calculator, albeit not as nice as this 35S with its LCD display and many more function keys. For simultaneous equations it is somewhat limited, and willnot take complex number entries.

Just got my HP35s today and am so far delighted with it. That's a nifty thing you showed to get the imaginary part and I have literally just done enough trig to understand why that works :) I made a small program to capture the real part as well using cos so you start with a complex number in X and it finishes with the imaginary part in y and the real part in x which I find pretty convenient.

Really nice, in-depth review Lipoff. I own an HP-35s too and it is very usable. I agree with a lot of your findings, but I am somewhat puzzled by your negative comments about the HP-15C, especially since you said you do not own one. I do own one. In fact I have owned and used HP Voyager series calculators since they came out in the early 80s and they are every bit as good as the HP-35s. Actually I find the HP-15C a lot better than the HP-35s in many ways. The matrix functions in the HP-15C are excellent, easy to learn and use. And the build quality of the Voyager series leaves the 35s in the dust too, especially the reliability of the keys. I had to send my first HP-35s back because one of the key did not work. The one I have now is o.k. but some keys I need to press harder than others to get reliable input. There are other quirks in the HP-35s that are really annoying, not something the HP-15C is prone to. The powerful simplicity of the HP-15C is exceptional and the landscape formfactor I find really handy. It takes much less space on your desk or drawing table, its overall footprint being almost a quarter less than the HP-35s. It is thinner too and the batteries in the HP-15C last much, much longer. None of this means that I would not recommend the HP-35s. I agree that it is a calculator that I prefer over all of the other currently available scientific calculator brands (except the SwissMicros DM42, which is superb too), but I still prefer my HP-15C, and not just for nostalgic reasons. I personally find it a better calculator and more usable than the 35s.

Thank you lipoff. A very nice overview. I've owned a number of HP calculators over the decades and although the 1990 HP-48SX RPL graphing calculator is still my favorite, I really the HP 35s. It has a large function set, is programmable, uses RPN entry, has a great keyboard feel, is still available new at a very reasonable cost and has a fantastic numeric algebraic equation solver. All in all, I consider it to be a great calculator! Steve Simpkin

Great job on the video!

Excellent review, Thanks - One thing that would be nice was to have a port to update de firmware...cleaning some of the quirks easily, such as the 3 digits separation you mentioned and improving complex arithmetic! Anyway, got one not used on auction for around 60 bucks, which is way less than what I found on ebay, and now I'm glad that I found this review.

Now that's a descent review of this calculator ! considered to buy one but choose otherwise. Having said this, I'm suprised you're not mentioning the SwissMicro calculators which are basicly clone's of verry populair vintage HP calculators. I own both a DM42 (HP-42S clone) and a DM15L (HP-15 clone) and find that while the DM15L is easier on your desk if you quickly want do do a calculation (love tha landscape layout), while the DM42 is although more advanced also in general more easy ans surely the better solution if you want to do some programming on it. Also there are some new old stock Russian calculators (Elektronica MK52 and MK61) that go for around $30 but these are only nice as a gadget. Finally when i started using RPN calculators i was suprised how quickly i got used to it. Then when i had to use another calculator featuring the more used in position notation concept i realy was struggling... how can people make such an cumbersome device.....

Well it looks like HP decided to discontinue this calculator. Which is a shame. It was like the last reverse polish notation scientific calculator available from what I can gather. Glad I snagged mine when I did.

That is a very nice review, thank you!

HP 15c Landscape is the best.

My main gripe is the lack of history. If I get an unexpected result, there is no way to go back and locate my mistake. And no way to revisit a calculation and recalculate using different inputs. My daily use calc is a Sharp EL-516T which solves these concerns. Highly recommended. BTW, I still love my old HP-34C with the red LED display! Cheers

I have HP33s. I like it It's shiny.. But the 8 silver keys at the top can't stand moonlight. Disaster. Because of that you can't edit an EQN with the cursor keys. . Only the backspace is working on a HP33s. Why are my errors always in the beginning ?? Thanks for mention that the HP35s does not have matrix capabilities. I was not sure.

P>R R>P in Display 9 and Display .0 not work for you?

It is a very good calculator, unfortunately I do not know if the same thing happens to most, but mine the batteries do not last 1 week and without quality they may be 9 days.

How do you input this equation and save it for future use? R = 0.005 + (14.50/P) [0.01 + 0.0095(V/100)^2]. Thanks.

Chksum doesn't work? .. isn't show key the one?

Why can’t you put on a lapel mic and plug it into your camera?

have a original led USA made 1143A series, got it at garage sale or who knows where, need new battery cells. and need a power supply,

pointless to try and follow, here for an hour trying to figure out which buttons your punching

Awful calculator. Would not recommend it to the devil