Comparison

Halcyon Calc Lite vs HP

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

Head to head
About

Halcyon Calc Lite

This app is a powerful calculator for students and professionals, offering advanced features like symbolic expression manipulation, graphing, and statistical analysis. It supports real, complex, and integer numbers, matrices, and vectors, making it versatile for various mathematical tasks.

Highlights
  • Symbolic expression manipulation
  • Graphing of expressions
  • Matrix and vector calculations
  • Statistical analysis
  • Multiple number formats (decimal, hex, octal, binary)
  • Over 225 built-in operations
Features
Read full description

For students, engineers, scientists or people who fondly remember classic calculators, Halcyon Calc Lite 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 - 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. - 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

HP

Emulates classic Hewlett Packard RPN scientific calculators from the 1970s. Experience the original HP-35, HP-45, and HP-21 models on your iPhone.

Highlights
  • RPN calculator emulation
  • HP-35 model
  • HP-45 model
  • HP-21 model
  • Classic scientific calculator interface
Features
Read full description

The classic Hewlett Packard RPN (Reverse Polish Notation) calculators. - HP-35, HP-45. First pocket scientific calculators (1972).  - HP-21. 2nd gen of the HP-35 (1975)

Screenshots

Halcyon Calc Lite4 screens
HP4 screens

Verdict

The call

The clearest difference is review sentiment: HP at 100% against Halcyon Calc Lite's 43%. HP also leads on in-app purchases (none vs 3) and ads (none vs shown). Halcyon Calc Lite's advantage is ratings volume (15 vs 5). On price, device support and iOS requirement 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

Both are free to download. Halcyon Calc Lite sells 3 one-off in-app purchases. HP asks for nothing beyond the download.

ReceptionRating · Positive reviews · Number of ratings

HP holds the better App Store score, 5.0 against 4.7. Both are backed by a comparable volume of ratings — 15 and 5 respectively. Written reviews point the same way: 43% of Halcyon Calc Lite's written reviews are positive against 100% of HP's.

UpkeepUpdate frequency

Halcyon Calc Lite ships an update every 3 months, HP every 11 days. The most recent releases landed on August 29, 2026 and September 21, 2026 respectively.

Scorecard7 real differences · 3 level
Halcyon Calc Lite versus HP: the parameters behind the verdict, then further details
ParameterHalcyon Calc LiteHP
PriceFreeFree
Rating4.7 (15 ratings)5.0 (5 ratings) — better
Positive reviews42.9% of reviews100.0% of reviews — better
Number of ratings15 — better5
Update frequencyEvery 3 monthsEvery 11 days — better
AdsYesNo — better
In-app purchasesYesNo — better
MonetizationFree with in-app purchasesFree — better
DevicesiPhone, iPad — betteriPhone
Requires iOS16.6 — better17.2
Further details — not scored
Size13 MB2 MB
Age rating4+4+
DeveloperHalcyon Touch SoftwareEnrique Haro

Customer experience

Halcyon Calc Lite

All ratings15 ratings
Positive93.3%
Neutral0.0%
Negative6.7%
Written reviews7 reviews
Positive42.9%
Neutral14.3%
Negative42.9%

HP

All ratings5 ratings
Positive100.0%
Neutral0.0%
Negative0.0%
Written reviews3 reviews
Positive100.0%
Neutral0.0%
Negative0.0%

In-app purchases

3 purchases

Halcyon Calc Lite

One-time3
  • Directory And Unit Conversion Support$0.99
  • Programming Support$1.99
  • Larger Display Upgrade$1.99
None

HP

No in-app purchases

Questions

Is Halcyon Calc Lite free?
Halcyon Calc Lite is free to download, with in-app purchases available.
Is HP free?
HP is free to download, with no in-app purchases.
Which has better reviews, Halcyon Calc Lite or HP?
HP is rated higher. Halcyon Calc Lite averages 4.7 out of 5 from 15 ratings, while HP averages 5.0 from 5 ratings.
Do Halcyon Calc Lite or HP have ads?
Halcyon Calc Lite shows ads; HP does not.
Which is updated more often, Halcyon Calc Lite or HP?
Halcyon Calc Lite ships an update every 3 months, and HP every 11 days. Most recently, Halcyon Calc Lite was updated on August 29, 2026 and HP on September 21, 2026.

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