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Comment by aidenn0 | Hacker News Reader

Can anyone with an existing SwissMicro comment on the battery life? That was something HP really nailed (at least with all of their scientific calculators released in my lifetime).

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That’s because the Voyager series like my HP-15C used silicon-on-sapphire technology originally developed for the space industry, which is why it will run a decade on a single change of batteries.

The SwissMicros are nowhere near the same class, no modern electronics are.

I heard a story that might be apocryphal that the Voyager series were specified to not need a battery change for "at least a year" and it was misinterpreted as 1 year of power-on time.

But both my 32s and 35s both had "pretty good" battery life.

I bought my HP-15C in 1987. It only recently got its third set of batteries.

I have a DM42 and have had it a few years. I haven’t had to replace the battery yet. There are times when I used it everyday, and times I leave it sitting on the shelf for months. I also have an HP42, and it eats batteries. I assume it has a fault.

I have a DM42 (which I absolutely love) and to be honest I'm a bit disappointed in battery life. I think it lasts a few weeks at best, and I know the battery is almost done when it starts resetting to the splash screen with a beep when I turn it on. The easy workaround for me, since it basically stays on my desk all the time, is to leave it plugged into a USP port. I noticed another comment saying the battery life is excellent so maybe mine has an issue, or my custom SI units program/menu sucks down the battery life!

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