Comparison

Halcyon Calc vs RCL

Price, ratings, monetisation and update history for both apps, side by side — with what reviewers say about each.

Head to head
About

Halcyon Calc

A powerful calculator app for students, engineers, and scientists. It handles complex numbers, symbolic expressions, unit conversions, and matrix operations, with advanced plotting and programming capabilities.

Highlights
  • Complex number calculations
  • Symbolic expression manipulation
  • Unit conversion with custom units
  • Matrix and vector operations
  • Symbolic plotting
  • Programming of custom operations
  • Statistical data analysis
Features
Read full description

For students, engineers, scientists or people who fondly remember classic calculators, Halcyon Calc is a great application for manipulating numbers and even symbolic expressions. Features: - Use this calculator on an iPhone, iPod Touch or an iPad - Use your finger to quickly scroll through the stack to review intermediate results - Copy and paste support - Over 225 built-in operations, including trig, logarithms, real functions, complex operations and more - Allows you to work with real, complex and integer numbers. - Real and complex numbers can be displayed in standard, fixed, scientific and engineering format - Use over 120 built-in units to perform unit conversion or create your own units if the one you want is not already there - Integer numbers can be displayed in decimal, hexadecimal, octal and binary bases - Work with real and complex matrices and vectors. - Enter symbolic expressions and solve them for different values. Even better, solve quadratic formulas, collect and expand factors and terms, find minima, maxima and roots of any expression. - Plot symbolic expressions in X/Y coordinates. Pan the coordinate space by dragging the plot in any direction. Zoom in and out using a pinch gesture. - Determine symbolic derivative, taylor series or numeric integral of an expression. - Store numbers, lists, strings and expressions in symbols. Create hierarchies of symbols to allow you to organize your calculations. - Create sequences of calculator commands into programs, creating your own operations which you can then include in expressions. - Store statistical data and calculate totals, averages, standard deviations, linear regressions, etc over that data. - Calculate the probabilities associated with standard distributions like the normal, F and T distributions.

About

RCL

This app faithfully recreates the TI-57 programmable calculator, offering its full scientific functions and programming capabilities. It includes a user manual, sample programs, and features like turbo speed and alphanumeric display.

Highlights
  • TI-57 recreation
  • Scientific functions
  • Programming capabilities
  • User manual included
  • Sample programs
  • Turbo speed option
  • Alphanumeric display option
Features
Read full description

RCL-57 is a complete and faithful recreation of the TI-57, one of the first programmable calculators. RCL-57 implements all the scientific functions and programming capabilities of the TI-57. In addition, it includes: * A complete user manual * Sample programs including Lunar Lander * Optional turbo speed and alphanumeric display * Listings of steps, registers and log * Saving and loading of programs * Sharing and importing of programs

Screenshots

Halcyon Calc4 screens
RCL4 screens

Verdict

The call

The clearest difference is price: RCL at Free against Halcyon Calc's $4.99. Halcyon Calc's advantage is update cadence (every 4 months vs every 14 months). On review sentiment, ads, in-app purchases and device support there is nothing between them.

Scored on Price · Rating · Positive reviews · Number of ratings · Update frequency · Ads · In-app purchases · Monetization · Best chart rank · Devices · Requires iOS

CostPrice · In-app purchases · Ads · Monetization

RCL is free to download; Halcyon Calc costs $4.99 up front. Neither carries in-app purchases, so what you see is what you pay.

UpkeepUpdate frequency

Halcyon Calc ships an update every 4 months, RCL every 14 months. The most recent releases landed on September 22, 2026 and September 19, 2026 respectively.

Scorecard3 real differences · 7 level
Halcyon Calc versus RCL: the parameters behind the verdict, then further details
ParameterHalcyon CalcRCL
Price$4.99Free — better
Rating4.9 (18 ratings) — better
Positive reviews100.0% of reviews100.0% of reviews
Number of ratings18 — better
Update frequencyEvery 4 months — betterEvery 14 months
AdsNoNo
In-app purchasesNoNo
MonetizationPaidFree — better
DevicesiPhone, iPadiPhone, iPod
Requires iOS16.615.1 — better
Further details — not scored
Size10 MB2 MB
Age rating4+4+
DeveloperHalcyon Touch SoftwarePaul Novaes

Customer experience

Halcyon Calc

All ratings18 ratings
Positive100.0%
Neutral0.0%
Negative0.0%
Written reviews6 reviews
Positive100.0%
Neutral0.0%
Negative0.0%

RCL

Written reviews2 reviews
Positive100.0%
Neutral0.0%
Negative0.0%

In-app purchases

None

Halcyon Calc

No in-app purchases

None

RCL

No in-app purchases

Questions

Is Halcyon Calc free?
Halcyon Calc costs $4.99, with no in-app purchases.
Is RCL free?
RCL is free to download, with no in-app purchases.
Do Halcyon Calc or RCL have ads?
Neither Halcyon Calc nor RCL shows ads.
Which is updated more often, Halcyon Calc or RCL?
Halcyon Calc ships an update every 4 months, and RCL every 14 months. Most recently, Halcyon Calc was updated on September 22, 2026 and RCL on September 19, 2026.

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