HP50g spins circles around the TI-89

[MarkHaysHarris777]

Greetings, my 50g came in the mail this week and has officially taken the place of my TI84|TI89 graphing calcs. Its not fair to compare the 84 with the 50g; but, the 50g is comparable with the 89 in several key areas, and the 50g wins hands down on all of them-- period.

I think the people at HP have made a tactical error in design and marketing where it comes to the 50g. I think they should have dumped the Prime, and reintroduced the 50g (50gc) with a color touch screen. The 50g is a better machine IMHO than the Prime, and the Prime is not competing well against the TI units (schools particularly). TI reintroduced the 84 with a color screen (doing well). Rather than discontinue the 50g, why not reintroduce it as the 50gc and put a really nice color touch screen on it (but keep the 50g intact)?

The other thing I'd do with the new 50gc is to make the ENTER key longer and place it horizontally across the center of the keyboard (left side) just over the two shift keys.

Anyway, its too new to me for a real review yet, but after half a week of fun and excitement the 50g and I are close friends. Of course, it remained in ALG mode for only about 50 seconds (how long it took me to find the mode key). The stack is fabulous, RPL is fantastic on this unit, it feels good too, and the case is really superb. Most of the menus make sense/ and the keyboard is very nice (better than I expected). The getting started booklet was great (and great fun) and the on-line and CD docs are really tops.

Well, so long TI... using strictly HP, or HP like, calculators /

Cheers,
marcus