I often wonder / complain about why they don’t just design cheap things better. It’s really not that different from a manufacturing standpoint. I mean, the obvious answer is cost for designers and most manufacturers simply don’t care. Cheap stuff is cheap. Still, given the choice between this and the others on the shelf it was an easy choice – and for $4.49, I really couldn’t go wrong.

It’s just lovely. It’s made of the same cheap stamped plastic as every other calculator, but it doesn’t feel quite as cheap. The sheen is nice. It’s light and creaks slightly when twisted, as to be expected. Buttons are buttons and work well, the LCD screen is actually more dot-matrix than the traditional fair, which… doesn’t really effect much of anything. I don’t have any particular point to make except that it’s less than five dollars and I’m proud to keep it on my desk next to $1000+ milled aluminum computing hardware. It’s an accomplishment.

The only thing I would notice is that the viewing angle is pretty dismal. It’s not an issue for me since I keep it fairly close to me on my desk (so I look down on it more perpendicular), but I can see how the sharper angled screen found on other models would be an advantage for the long-reachers out there. That’s doing pretty good for such a cheap item.

Bought from Superstore, and while the J+- logo didn’t show up anything terribly useful on the internet, I suspect it’s some offshoot of the President’s Choice / No Name Brand since it was surrounded by the iconic yellow on other desk items. They’re doing really well for themselves – they also sell lovely black pencils in cardboard tubes and I really ought to buy some just to share the brilliant packaging.

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