current 50g displays

[matthiaspaul]

(03-17-2015 09:36 AM)Wes Loewer Wrote:  Can anyone who has purchased a 50g in the past year or two tell me about the screen? It would be even more informative if you also have an older model to compare it to.

I bought a black 50g last year to accompany my good old 48GX. Though bought as "used" (for just 40 EUR), it was in prestine condition and still came with early firmware, so it must have been manufactured in ca. 2006/2007, bought and then shelved away for years. Although I still prefer my 48GX for its better keyboard (both layout- and haptics-wise) and general build quality, the 50g is technically the better machine, and somewhat ironically it being less than perfect renewed my old interest in calculator design in general (otherwise, I wouldn't be here, I guess ;-).

Since I am not particularly fond of the low contrast of the black 50g's label colors, I bought a blue 50g in January (69 EUR new) just to try out the alternative color scheme - and I must confess, that whilst the blue color scheme needs some time getting used to it, it is by far not as ugly as it looks on most photos of the calculator I have seen on the web. More important, (though still not perfect) the labels are much easier to read in dim light, and since the layout isn't as logically arranged as on the 48GX (which is for the most part very intuitive and thus easy to memorize), this makes the blue unit easier to use than the black one in practise.

So, I have an "old" black and a "new" blue 50g. Except for the color, they both look identically down to the embarrassing typos on the coin cell battery cover ("Memory Backup battery!!" #-| ). Both displays are black without any reddish tint. Just in case it matters, both are "CNA" units.

I just wished HP would have chosen an optically better display cover glass with proper anti-reflective coating.

Greetings,

Matthias