Are the latest 50g cheaply made?

[qwerty42]

(06-05-2014 09:46 PM)Tim Wessman Wrote:  They are still the same and manufactured with the same standards and methods. However, molds for injection do wear out over time and it would not surprise me if some of them are getting quite old which means the tolerances aren't as tight as they once were.

Tim, are you 100% certain of this? I respect your opinion very much, given you should know better than any of us, but I really do not think that this is correct.

My first 50g was purchased shortly after they were first released. It is still rock-solid; all of the keys feel excellent, and everything works just as it did when brand new.

I bought a new one from Amazon at the end of 2013, as a backup. This one came with the new fabric case. This new calculator felt very noticeably different from my old one. For one, the mold lines of the plastic on the back were MUCH sharper than my old one. Also, the symbols imprinted onto the plastic on the back of the case were different as well.

The new one also sounded more hollow than the old one, and the keys felt slightly different as well--just a tiny bit 'mushier' and less positive feeling with their click. The paint on the front had a slightly rough texture, which felt cheap IMO, and it also had a lot more of a metallic sparkle to it. It did feel slightly lighter as well.

All of these were not really an issue to me; just different. However, I did feel that the keys did NOT feel as solid or positive as my old 50g, and I quickly discovered upon using it that the left arrow key was very unreliable. It only registered keypresses when I pushed it in a very specific direction. I tried pressing it many times, in hopes that it was just dirty or misaligned somehow and may correct itself, but the issue remained and was easily repeatable. It made the calculator completely miserable to use, and I ended up returning it. My old 50g's keys are extremely reliable; I can press them from any angle and as long as they click, the keypress is registered.

After returning the new one to Amazon, I ended up buying another one on eBay that was in the original, older white/blue packaging. This one feels, looks, and works just like my first one. Even my girlfriend who is not interested in calculators at all immediately noticed the difference and thought that the one from Amazon seemed a lot more cheaply made. The 50g from Amazon appeared to be genuine, and had the hp genuine hologram seal on its packaging.

Josh