Customer Reviews

Hewlett Packard HP6S Scientific Calculator

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

I bought a 6S prior to my seventh grade year nearly ten years ago. At the time this was a new calculator (based on the copyright date on the back of the 6S) and came in a silver finish rather than metallic blue. However, the machine itself does not appear to have changed. This is a good thing as this calculator is still my top pick for middle school students who may need something between a four-function and a graphing model.

I picked the 6S over others as I was fond of HP's printers and scanners, not just for performance but also for reliability. This turned out to be a very good move on my part as this calculator still functions today (and has outlived other solar calculators).

This calculator may not have a ton of advanced functions but for the student looking to get through middle school math and science courses it will prove more than enough. It also is superior to the TI-8x series of calculators in terms of usability for a few functions; I found myself using it occasionally in high school as well. Today I use this one more often than my battery-powered four-function Texas Instruments since the solar panel has held up so well over the years and doesn't drain any sort of battery. I lost the case that comes with the calculator (it wasn't the most durable case anyways) but the unit itself is pretty solid and doesn't get nicked up easily--I usually keep this in a box with math manipulatives and haven't found any signs of wear.

I recommend picking this one up if you're a student in grades 5 through 7 or if you're in pre-Algebra, not Algebra I, in any other grade level. It's nice to have for some entry-level science courses (especially at the high school level and for courses in college designed for non-science majors). The display is large and clear enough that it can be used in group situations; I use mine as a tutoring tool quite often. As a bonus the buttons are very easy to push and are laid out logically plus the HP reliability is there. I expect to get another decade of use out of mine!

I think this is a great calculator for a specific group of users. I'm a computer systems engineer and often need to do decimal/hexadecimal/octal conversions. This calculator offers the functionality in a simple format.

I owned the Solar version and wore it out. Had a hard time getting a replacement, but eventually found one online.

This is a smart little eye-catching calculator. Since it is an HP the quality is undisputed. If you want a scientific calculator without all the bells and wistles this will do. If you are into math this would only be a beginner....

I gave 2 stars not because of the feature or price of this caculator but its design. This is a very handy calculator with all scientific and computer science features, unfortunately its bright blue background with black letters is very hard to read. The solar version is silver with black letters is much easier to read. If you like this calculator and think about to buy one, do not buy this one, go to buy the solar version.

This is perhaps the cheapest and smallest scientific calculator you can get. It provides all of the basic functions: trigonometric functions, logarithms, powers and roots, etc. It provides various conversions: minutes and seconds to decimal format, angle measures, and rectangular to polar. It can handle fractions. It provides multiple number bases (but in a limited range). It has statistics functions. The metallic blue finish is very good looking-unfortunately, it makes the shifted functions almost impossible to read. If you spend a little more money, .... you can get a much more capable and usable calculator, for example, with a hard cover (instead of a vinyl slipcase), a two-line display (instead of one), multiple memory registers (instead of one), etc.