Is 50g good or crap?

[Massimo Gnerucci]

Resurrecting a post from 9 years ago to argue about a long gone calculator...

[Gerald H]

50g has advantage of using external power source when plugged in to computer.

49G has lower power consumption rate than 50g but no ability to use external sources.

49g is my favourite calculator, a dream come true in year 2,000.

[Alchemisst]

My favourite is HP 49g+ a beauty

[Joe Horn]

(04-30-2023 11:44 AM)Alchemisst Wrote:  Whatever Prime beats HP 50g in all respects,era of HP 50g is gone

In ALL respects? Not true. The 50g has, by far, the most customizable keyboard of any programmable HP calculator. Not only can any function or program or system operation can be assigned to any key, but every key supports eleven separate assignments. This lets the user turn their 50g into whatever customized tool they need. No other model comes close regarding customizability, including Prime.

My main 50g currently has 89 key assignments, all of which I use. Prime can't do that.

[nickapos]

(04-30-2023 10:53 PM)Joe Horn Wrote:  

(04-30-2023 11:44 AM)Alchemisst Wrote:  Whatever Prime beats HP 50g in all respects,era of HP 50g is gone

In ALL respects? Not true. The 50g has, by far, the most customizable keyboard of any programmable HP calculator. Not only can any function or program or system operation can be assigned to any key, but every key supports eleven separate assignments. This lets the user turn their 50g into whatever customized tool they need. No other model comes close regarding customizability, including Prime.

My main 50g currently has 89 key assignments, all of which I use. Prime can't do that.

You can create custom key assignments in prime but it’s clunky. I have done a few in mine.
I also prefer the units system in 50g/Plus42 other than that Prime is great

[carey]

(04-30-2023 01:15 PM)Alchemisst Wrote:  Moreover HP 50g is just useful for calculations as it lacks most of advanced mathematical features like hypergeometric series,taylor series,…

Hmm…someone must have forgotten to tell HP the 50g can’t do Taylor series.

https://www.ele.uri.edu/faculty/vetter/O...Series.pdf

[rprosperi]

There's literally an unlimited number of things the 50g cannot do, but HP created it nearly 20 years ago for, and sold it to, Engineers and Scientists that are trying to solve actual problems other than solving pointless and obscure tricks some other calculator, or even Wolphram Alpha, can do all these years later. Good choice IMHO, else we'd still be waiting for the model that can do all of those...

OTOH, those pointless tricks could also be handled by writing programs, which the 50g also happens to be able to do.

The Prime is undoubtedly far better at some things than a 50g. If the need should ever occur to do those things, I would possibly even choose a Prime...

[Wes Loewer]

(04-30-2023 10:53 PM)Joe Horn Wrote:  The 50g has, by far, the most customizable keyboard of any programmable HP calculator. Not only can any function or program or system operation can be assigned to any key, but every key supports eleven separate assignments. This lets the user turn their 50g into whatever customized tool they need. No other model comes close regarding customizability, including Prime.

My main 50g currently has 89 key assignments, all of which I use. Prime can't do that.

And with the KeyMan library, it's a LOT more than 11 by adding double-click, long hold, and different behavior depending on whether or not you are editing.

This is something I truly miss. The Prime has the ability to reassign a key of sorts, but the Prime's USER key cannot actually run a program directly. It can only echo text to the command line.

In the same vein is the 50g's customizable menu. With all those blank menu buttons on the Prime, they are just begging to be utilized with customizable menus.

The combination of customizable keys, customizable menus, and RPL made the 50g exceedingly efficient.

[Eric Rechlin]

All of you are taking the bait from the troll who brought back a 9-year-old thread that hadn't been touched in 5 years.

The truth is the 50g and Prime serve different markets. Different features, different target users. You can't say one is better than the other overall. While both are the top-of-the-line models of their respective times, they are not really competitors. The Prime is the successor to the 38/39/40 series and aimed more at students and teachers, and the 50g is the end of the 48/49 series with no successor and aimed more at professionals and tinkerers/hackers.

[Massimo Gnerucci]

(05-01-2023 06:09 PM)Eric Rechlin Wrote:  All of you are taking the bait from the troll who brought back a 9-year-old thread that hadn't been touched in 5 years.

Just what I pointed at.
And he also praises the 49g+ rather than the 50g.

[FLISZT]

Neither crap nor good, but if not perfect, "just" excellent!

[EdS2]

I think certain kinds of threads should be locked once they go quiet. Necromancy is not always a good thing. Controversial statements and provocative questions are not a good way to start a productive conversation.

[avsebastian]

If I had to choose the 10 best calculators of all time that Hewlett Packard has made, they would be (quality/design/relevance), regardless of the ranking :

hp prime v2.0
hp 50g
hp 48 gx
hp 12 C
hp 42S
hp 41 CX
hp 10bII+
hp 35S
hp 20s
hp 17bII

if i had to choose the 5 best calculators:

hp 50g
hp 48gx
hp 12C
hp 42s
hp 41Cx

[jonmoore]

(05-03-2023 09:06 PM)avsebastian Wrote:  If I had to choose the 10 best calculators of all time that Hewlett Packard has made, they would be (quality/design/relevance), regardless of the ranking :

hp prime v2.0
hp 50g
hp 48 gx
hp 12 C
hp 42S
hp 41 CX
hp 10bII+
hp 35S
hp 20s
hp 17bII

if i had to choose the 5 best calculators:

hp 50g
hp 48gx
hp 12C
hp 42s
hp 41Cx

I'll play on the top 5 front but in no specific order

HP15C
HP50g
HP97
HP Prime G2
DM41X

Sure I'm cheating with the DM41X, but in 2023 I have no need for HP41 peripherals, so the Swiss Micros hardware makes far more sense for my needs.

My HP48GX didn't quite make the list (much as I love the occasional afternoon exploring math with mid nineties hardware) but the 50G can do everything the 48GX can muster and a considerable amount more on top. The one area where the 48GX edges the 50g is linear algebra. There's some great matrix focused libraries for the 48GX that weren't rewritten for the 50g. And with all the bells and whistles of SpeedUI, the general UX is snappy too (as long as you don't allow the garbage collection routines to spoil your day).

As for which calcultor I use most often, it's surpisingly the HP Prime G2. For many years it was the 50g, but most of the time I don't need to create a bespoke programs, so speed and convenience is my priority. It's a real pity HP didn't provide the Prime with a proper RPN/RPL mode, but what's the point in getting hung up on what might have been.