Hi all,
sorry to bother you,
but I'm so happy I finally got my brand new HP-48G+ with black&white high contrast display, 1280K RAM (or 10 ports), and, not to forget, the SpeedUpMAX which is a switchable CPU clock rate accelerator.
Although the unit was made in Indonesia (ID249...), which can be easily seen from the lower quality keyboard legends, too, it's the best HP-48G series machine I've ever seen.
It has much more RAM than I'll ever need, I've another 48G with 2304K RAM (or 18 ports), and I use only the first two ports.
In my older GX's I mainly used main RAM and port 1.
The most important improvement is the MUCH better display.
So from the hardware side there absolutely no reason to switch to a 49G or alike. Actually there never was a reason, except for the previously better display of the 49G, but even that is history now...
The keyboard has the layout and feel I want it to have, and works without missing a key stroke, of course.
The additional RAM and the SpeedUp were a nice-to have,
I thought if I spend another few hundred euros for another calc, it could have some bells and whistles, too.
Did I mention that my unit even has a write-protect switch for ports 2 - 9 ? Ok, another gimmick;-)
The speed gain depends on your application.
For normal calculations by hand the machine is fast enough,
programs run a bit faster in speedup mode, of course.
I'd suggest everybody who wants to keep working with a *real* HP-48, and not the newer wannabees, to get a unit with that excellent display. The other gimmicks are nice to have (as said above), but not essential for everyone.
The key legends in the molded keys are better,
but even these painted keys of my new HP-48 are much better than any keyboard of the 'successors' of the real HP-48.
As always, OMHO.
Regards,
Raymond