HP HP48GX RPN Expandable Graphic Calculator

What i found amazed me...not only is my 32SII worth about 400.00 dollars now, there are no more to be had...suddenly it doesn't look too tired! I continued to look for HP's RPN offerings, and found, other than the 48, they don't have any RPN Calculators anymore. I was told that they have something under development,due out in late Fall or early Winter. They did not say it was RPN, nor did they quote a "Ball Park" price, so I can't wait!

Has HP lost its collective mind? Is anyone in HP product development or Sales following this discussion? I hope so.

By the way, I paid around 45.00 dollars for my 32SII...it came with a great soft cover manual, about 160 pages, and is the best calculator I ever owned. It replaced my 70's era HP33E, which I still have.....Wonder what that is worth?

Thanks for allowing me to vent!


PE = Paranoid Extremist   September 27, 2003
 4 out of 4 found this review helpful

This is without a doubt, the best calculator ever made for engineering calculations and tasks. Unlike a laptop, it never runs out of battery power in the middle of a design, can be used easily on a plane, can even be used in techincal customer meetings or on the shop floor to check things out that need checking. In an age of spreadsheets and complex analyis programs, it is often forgotten how useful a competent engineering calculator can be to a practicing engineer. It is also invaluable to students of engineering for assignments and exams. Speaking of which, the MN (and soon NCEES) policy has changed so that this calculator is no longer eligible for use on the PE or FE exams. This is due to its ability to transfer data to others, and that one can type text into it. Using the time functions of the calculator, and some personal time trials on the practice exams, I estimated that it would take the average test taker around 1 week to type in even a portion of the test with the limited alpha numeric capabilities of the keyboard, and then transmit it through infa-red to a waiting accomplice 3-4 ft away (given best transmition speed). You would almost certainly be spotted during this activity, and forced into some form of slave labor camp or fast food restaurant. As I am sure most of you considering purchasing this calculator are indeed planning this type of criminal intent, I must warn you that you better think twice because they are on to you. However, those rare, honest engineering and technical types with a minor amount of integrity that somehow leaked into their character could reward themselves (after passing the test using a slide rule, an abacus and some rocks) with a fine tool such as this calculator. They are getting harder and harder to find, so I would buy one while it is available. (The alternatives I have found so far for my upcoming test are kind of like trading a Land Rover for a skateboard). The add-on cartridge with the additional 670 equations, constants and tables needed for the PE exam is pretty good too but may soon require a special permit to own.


User unfriendly, slow, too many typing for simple things   August 24, 2003
 1 out of 7 found this review helpful

I bought this one when I was in engineering school. I also worked for the company who made this calc (the companies culture is totally different now from the past unfortunately!). Ok, this calc is very powerful (more powerful than TI flagship 92+ or Voyage 200. I have both HP 48GX and Voyage 200) This calc has also (used to) have a lot of very telent people/programmers to support them (You can find a lot of programs on the web). But you have to deal with the unfriendly user and unaccept slow (for me) interface,

If I don't use it for a while, I cannot even recall how to use this calc except basic functions. The calc is slow, even you type 1+1 (ok it should be 1 1 +), it needs to think for milliseconds. Sometimes, my typing is much faster than this calc can handle (I feel).

This calc also takes many keys typing for some simple calculations Some calculation will need you to go through menu after menus (if you don't bother to custom the user interface!). OK, if you have time, that is not a problem. If you use for EXAM or Under Time Pressure, this will kill you. It takes much more keys typing (assuming you know where to find all the menus). It will take more time for the same calculation for other calc (remember this calc is slow too).

This calc targets to their friends who loves RPN/RPL or very technical people who likes complicated things rather than simple and user friendly interface for the same problem to solve. It is powerful. Even 12 yo calc, it is more powerful than any TI or Casio.

Unless you are very technical person, this calc is overkill. Even you are technical person, you may not need this calc. You are better to get a laptop, running Matlab and Maple etc, they are much more useful, user friendly, much faster and much more powerful than this calc! You can program C instead of RPL or assembly language. Almost nobody will program assembly these days! You can get a very small Laptop e.g Toshiba lifebook intead of this product unless you are still in school, this is for the exam. If you are still a student, you may think about TI 89, it is more user friendly, much faster (most operations), you don't need this calc. (I have many math courses and engineering courses, I can use either HP or TI calc fine even in my graduate courses)

I never believe a calc should be replace for the brain to do algebra, symbolic manipulation in high/college school. One will learn nothing that way. Don't buy it for that reason.

In short, the calc is very powerful, RPN may be more good for the machine (less stacks), but you have to think how to do you algabra. Why no testbooks write equations in RPN ways if it is easy to read? Anyway, I don't like RPN too much but I can deal with it. The unfriendly, very SLOW interface makes this calc unusable for me. I will avoid this one unless absolute necessary to deal with those problems. Otherwise, put the equations to Matlab or Maple, you get much better, faster, nicer results and graphs.


HP-48GX   May 24, 2003
 2 out of 5 found this review helpful

I've owned HP calulators since they first came out - that funny model with the red letters and now have a HP48-GX which has been my pal for about 7 years or so.
Well there are some Grrr's. To avoid collision with global variables try using lower case and you will go nuts. The cursed thing does not allow you to protect a variable or funtion against an Opps. That really gets annnoying when you've just entered the long and lat of fifty cities and then do an Oh-S___t.
But all and all the HP-48GX is like your dog - no matter how much it irritates you want to take it everywhere to record idle facts, notions, and observations. Heck, with a HP-48 someday you might grow up to be smart. Just don't loose the memory and don't even think pare parts aare available.

Rob


Attention Current/Future Physics Majors   May 3, 2003
 2 out of 10 found this review helpful

I am a Physics major so I use this calculator almost every day, and I can honestly say that it is the best calculator currently available. Just the other day me and five other Physics majors were working on some Quantum Mechanics homework and we got to this really ugly integral. Three of the people I work with have HP's and can't seem to get their calculators to evaluate symbolic integration. Another guy had just bought the new HP (the blue one) but his calculator could not solve it. So I plugged it into my trusty TI and out popped the answer. If you're planning on taking classes that involve a lot of integration, do not buy an HP, or you'll have to depend on the TI owner in your group to solve the tough integrals.