You might not have had a use for a dedicated calculator after completing your final high school maths course, but that doesn’t mean others don’t. In fact, despite the rise of smartphones, companies like Casio are still churning out standalone calculators. And its latest, the fx-FD10 Pro, which is designed for outdoor-types like surveyors, seems almost indestructible.
Compared to a smartphone’s display, the fx-FD10 Pro’s 128×64-pixel monochrome screen downright sucks, but it can display numbers and graphs even in blinding sunlight, so it’s hard to complain. The calculator also’s got an SD card slot for storing large amounts of collected data, equations, or apps. And it will sync to a computer over USB when you need to offload all of that info.
But what makes the fx-FD10 Pro most interesting — and a little over-the-top — is how tough Casio has made it. It can shrug off rain, splashes, and even spilled beverages. And if you happen to be surveying the Sahara when a sudden sandstorm kicks up, the calculator will keep on working — even if you can’t see it in your hands.
You can even drop it, toss it around, and generally not have to worry about being careful with it because it meets the US military’s specs for shocks. And given it can survive almost anything helps make the calculator’s $235 price tag easier to stomach since you know it could keep working for decades. [Casio via PCWorld]