HP50g spins circles around the TI-89

[Sukiari]

(04-30-2015 05:59 AM)MarkHaysHarris777 Wrote:  I think they should have dumped the Prime, and reintroduced the 50g (50gc) with a color touch screen.

While I agree that the RPL line should not be abandoned, I wonder why it needs a color touch screen. What could a color touchscreen add in this application? It would certainly drain the batteries much more quickly, and there might be some fun games enabled by this technology, but for a math, science, and engineering pocket tool I do not think there would be much, if any, added utility. Frankly the color touch screen calculators on the market all seem like gimmicks and every mathematician I know (quite a few actually) scorn them.

I think that a more robust chassis, a backlight, and some weatherproofing would ensure the continued life of the platform. While there are claims that the Saturn is "played out" I don't think this is an inevitability - more that HP didn't want to invest the money in re-spinning it, or for that matter having to design the hardware and whatnot.

If there is to be a successor to the 50G it will be made by the community of RPL users, not by HP.