Some things have an incalculable value.

A big hassle of traveling abroad is trying to figure out the currency of a different country, but our reporter Masanuki Sunakoma found a device on Amazon Japan that helps to relieve the stress of shopping in a foreign land. However, like many of Masanuki’s Amazon purchases, this was no ordinary foreign currency calculator; it was the lowest-rated one, with a rock-bottom score of 1.0.

You might be thinking this is because calculators and even online currency converters are already easily available on our phones. While that is true, there is some appeal to a dedicated device that you can just quickly punch numbers into and that doesn’t affect your phone’s battery. No, this product’s problems go far beyond that.

According to the reviews, the LCD screen was broken, and the buttons are too small, making them difficult to press. Those are valid complaints, but being the seasoned low-ranked product shopper Masanuki is, he realized that it’s usually only the customers who got burned who write in to complain. There very well could be thousands of satisfied customers for every one who got a bum display.

This is why our writer does what he does. This was a mission to right the wrongs of skewed reviews and redeem the reputation of items that were unfairly represented in the world of e-commerce. So he paid the 1,780 yen for the foreign currency calculator and welcomed it with open arms.

At first glance, it looked pretty good. There was a neck strap for easy access, and Masanuki felt the size was good for a travel gadget.

Since it’s just a calculator, it can’t get the current exchange rate from the Internet. Instead, the rate has to be first input manually, but after that, conversions should be super simple. That all sounded fine to our writer, so he eagerly turned it on to try it out.

▼ Masanuki: “Huh…”

Rather than the typical numbers one would expect a calculator to display, all that could be seen were random fragments of liquid crystal in varying shades of black.

Unless this thing was set to the currency of the Predator planet, something was seriously wrong. Masanuki could only imagine the panic a tourist might experience if their currency calculator bugged out like this while traveling.

However, something about the way the LCD display was faded in parts led our writer to believe that the batteries might just be low. It’s certainly not unheard of for items with batteries included to experience some considerable drain before landing in a customer’s hands.

So, he went to his local drug store and picked up a fresh one.

Perhaps all those people who gave this device a one-star review also just didn’t realize it needed a little TLC to get working properly.

▼ Masanuki: “Damn it…”

Were all of these calculators actually broken like this? It was starting to appear so, but how could a business operate by selling broken calculators?

Masanuki really wanted to give this a good review and help a struggling electronics maker get some much-needed business. However, now the proud owner of a useless piece of plastic and two batteries, one of which he had to go out in the middle of the night to get, he could only say that this was the worst calculator he’d ever seen in his life.

And while he still believed there are unfairly maligned products out there on Amazon Japan, this was not one of them. It earns every one-star rating it has and then some. Still, our reporter will continue to search the dregs of online shopping and find hidden gems wherever they may be.

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