Review: Jot Pocket Calculator

Welcome to another week of calculator reviews! Starting this week, I'm going to highlight the best comments of the previous week. These comments may come from Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, or this site. Feedback is always appreciated, so thank you for your kind messages!

In response to the Rock On Drum Kit Calculator Review

I'm so glad my review could be so helpful.

A few weeks ago I reviewed the Jot Scientific Calculator and was disappointed with it. It was a $1 calculator with too many design flaws to recommend. Today, I'm giving Jot another chance with their Pocket Calculator, which also costs $1 and can be found at the Dollar Tree.

Jot Pocket Calculator

Wow. What a piece of junk. I was able to make sure this thing actually worked before removing it from its packaging, but until it was actually in my hands for use, I had no idea how bad this really was. The very first thing I noticed when this went into the palm of my hand was how rough and sharp the sides were due to terrible injection molding. The face plate and back piece don't fit together quite right, so this only exacerbates the side problems.

The buttons feel okay, which is probably the best thing I can say about this device. The screen is unusually small for the size of the calculator and it runs on a battery so there's a lot of empty space inside that could have been used to fit a solar cell.

During the video review, I ran out of things to say, so I disassembled the device to make it a bit longer. Everything inside felt cheap and poorly designed. That's not so much of an issue, but what isn't shown in the video is the calculator no longer working properly after I reassembled it.

This calculator is further evidence that $1 calculators are not worth buying. The Jot Scientific Calculator had a few redeeming qualities, so I had some hopes for this one, since it has less functionality but costs the same amount.

Here's a picture of it not working, next to a useless manual.

Like that other one, this one also has to be completely disassembled in order to get to the battery. I'm generally careful when putting things back together, so someone who isn't as interested in calculator preservation as I am will likely mess it up as well.

I still have one more Jot calculator to review, and that one's not looking promising...

Back view.

Internal view.

Another internal view.