Calculatober Day 7: Brookstone Wafer Thin Calculator

It's day 7 of Calculatober, and the reviews are still coming! Already it feels like I'm starting to put a dent in my backlog of calculators to review.

Brookstone Wafer Thin Calculator.

The Brookstone Wafer Thin Calculator looks like it was inspired by Apple's iPod Nano, but it predates that device by three years. This device came out in 2002. It has a body made almost entirely of aluminum and feels strong enough to withstand some abuse. But why would anyone want to abuse something so beautiful?

Each button is only slightly raised above the surface, and it's just enough to give this calculator a really nice tactile feel while performing calculations. This combined with the beep and ultra-fast response time makes the Wafer one of the most satisfying calculators to use. The LCD display is also pristine.

As much as I'd love to see its insides, I'm not going to risk it because that would require bending the aluminum chassis and potentially breaking something. But Brookstone was well aware of this when designing it, so they made the CR2025 battery compartment easily accessible by simply sliding it out the bottom. I didn't have any CR2025s, but I did manage to make this calculator work with a CR2032 and a little bit of effort getting it in.

The Wafer also has calendar and clock functions, but there's nothing all that interesting of note regarding this.

While it's a stunning device, it's strange that Brookstone didn't include a small carrying case with it. The large display would be prone to scratches. It wouldn't be hard to find a case for it, but that would have been a really nice touch.