Buyers remorse of HP 48

[Steve Simpkin]

(06-24-2020 03:10 AM)Potato Wrote:  Hi,
I'm relatively new to HP calculators and had bought an HP 48S due to the appeal of having more than a 4 level stack (I'm probably not going to end up using the graphing features of it tbh), but when I received it today, it feels VERY sluggish compared to something like my father's HP 15C (bad comparison I know but that feels much better to use).

Should I sell it and buy an HP 35S instead?

I love my HP-48SX but it is somewhat sluggish for a calculator and its display has very low contrast. It does so much that it really pushes its 30 year old Saturn processor to its limits, especially when using the Equation Writer. You should see how you like using RPL with its unlimited stack and structured programming language compared to RPN used on traditional HP calculators. If you really like it you might consider getting a used HP 50G which is more recent, is much faster and has a much better display. There is also the HP Prime which has a color touch screen, has a powerful CAS, is super fast and has a form of RPN with an unlimited stack. It has its own programming language which is different than RPL.

The HP35S is a very different beast. It is an RPN model with an optional algebraic mode and a really nice numeric solver. All of these models (and more) are available in emulation so you can try them for free.