HP-39gII -- first impressions :-(

[Stefan_Wolfrum]

I got my HP-39gII today. And I must say I'm really disappointed. I'll make it quick and list a few points:

• The casing feels really cheap. Most inexpensive China plastic feeling.
• Turned it on. Immediately saw that the display was built in at an angle, app. 2 degrees tilted. Very annoying!!
• There's still a lot of space below the lowest pixel line. Why wasn't the screenestate maximized to the edges? I'm guessing there could have been at least 16 more pixel lines below the menu key labels. Alternatively: make the cutout shorter. The way it is it looks a bit braggy.
• The 4 AAA batteries that came with the calc are almost empty because after turning the HP-39gII on the battery indicator immediately lit up. Never had that experience with a factory-new electronic device that came with a set of batteries
• Each time I turn it off and on again it comes up with the hp logo and asks for the default language. Maybe because of the worn-out batteries? Annoying.
• The User Guide states: "The PC Connectivity Kit can be installed from the product CD included with the HP 39gII." -- I'm a Mac. Where's the Connectivity Kit for me? Is there one?
• Most annoying fact of all (but I'm not the first to mention): no option for switching the calc into RPN mode. :-(((
• Being restricted to having only 10 matrices, 10 lists and so forth is annoying, too.

There are a few positive facts, too:

• I'm really happy that there's finally an HP calc with a display with more than 131x64 monochrome pixels! And that was the main reason why I bought the 39gII. The 256x128 pixels greyscale display is okay. I've seen better but it's not bad.
• Although the keys of the HP-35S are FAR better than the ones of the HP-39gII the latter one's are not too bad because they have a reasonable pressure point and make a nice "click" sound. (But not the cursor keys, though ...)
• The unit's speed seems to be good. It reacts quickly on keystrokes and there's no noticeable delay when menus or windows/dialogs are opened/drawn. The drawing of functions is really fast.

Just a quick feedback from a long time HP calcs user and collector. Too bad that there seems to have been budget cuts on HP's QA department. Otherwise a unit with a tilted display wouldn't have left the factory. 😞

[Tim_Wessman]

Few comments here.

>The casing feels really cheap. Most inexpensive China plastic feeling.

Agreed that it doesn't feel as good as a 48 or 50. However, it is targeted at the very low price range. The 50g is supposed to be ~2x the price. This is the low end HP graphing option. When you compare it to others in that range it suddenly seems much better then its peers.

>The 4 AAA batteries that came with the calc are almost empty because after turning the HP-39gII on the battery indicator

That means full batteries. The indicator will drop bars as the batteries run down. You have about 400-500 hours of use from that set I would guess. That is better then what a 48 would run on the same set! 🙂

>Each time I turn it off and on again it comes up with the hp logo and asks for the default language. Maybe because of the worn-out batteries? Annoying.

This should not be happening. Once set, it should remain that way. The logo coming up is normal though.

There is no mac connkit available.

>Most annoying fact of all (but I'm not the first to mention): no option for switching the calc into RPN mode. :-(((

Yup. RPN users were not the target for this unit. I wish RPN could have been in there too.

>Being restricted to having only 10 matrices, 10 lists and so forth is annoying, too.

It isn't really a problem in practice, but I agree someone who comes from the 50g or similar will be feel restricted.

[Stefan_Wolfrum]

Hi Tim & thanks for answering so quickly! Much appreciated!

>>The 4 AAA batteries that came with the calc are almost empty because after turning the HP-39gII on the battery indicator

>That means full batteries. The indicator will drop bars as the batteries run down.

Then you have to update the User Guide. Here's a screenshot from the PDF, page 1: http://cl.ly/image/203z0y2Q0G3t

I see the point with the target market for this machine. And therefore I do hope for an HP-5xG (x>0) with a similar or even better, higher resolution display and RPN and only memory bound number of variables. 🙂

Thanks,

Stefan.

[Tim_Wessman]

Sheesh... I told them to replace that image with the empty one at least 4 or 5 times. I was told it was and didn't check myself. Sorry about that!

[Axel_59]

---

@Stefan Wolfrum wrote:

I got my HP-39gII today. And I must say I'm really disappointed. I'll make it quick and list a few points:

...

• Being restricted to having only 10 matrices, 10 lists and so forth is annoying, too.

---

Hi Stefan,

you can easily create new global object if needed. Create a program :

EXPORT L10:={},L11:={},M10:=[0], M11:=[0];

Check it and HOME

You have now new global variables you can use with STO> and recall. Their values are kept when the calculator goes OFF

In fact there is no limitation at all with  10 lists or matrices in a program (or outside a program as we saw before)

For example this program calculate a square root of a matrix :

EXPORT MatSqr(m)            // Input : m, square matrix
BEGIN
  LOCAL p,d,s,i;
  p:=EIGENVV(m);            // return 1/ Eigen vectors  2/Eigen values 
  d:=p(2);  s:=SIZE(d);    
  FOR i FROM 1 TO s(1) DO   
     d(i,i):=√(d(i,i));  
  END
  RETURN p(1)*d*p(1)^-1;    // result is P*d*P^-1 (char for 1/x on the 39GII):
 END;

 

[Stefan_Wolfrum]

Very interesting! Thanks so much! 🙂

Now, what can I do about this issue that the calc asks for a language everytime I switch it on? Is it a bug?

How can I tell what firmware version my 39gII runs? And, much more interesting: what firmware revisions are there? What is the latest? Where can I download it? And how can I upgrade my calc (ON A MAC!)?

Thanks a lot!

Stefan.

[Axel_59]

to see the version of ROM  :  ON & F4  (push ON let it push and F4). The last revision is from september 2012.   The older roms are very buggy

"what can I do about this issue that the calc asks for a language everytime I switch on?" : It's very curious. Try **bleep**f Mode and choose the language

[Stefan_Wolfrum]

Okay, I've got a

    09/May/2012 $Revision: 16633 $ 66MHz

at the top of the screen after ON+F4.

Interesting ... I swear I saw "80 MHz" the first time ... strange ...

So, if there's a firmware from September maybe the annoying "always have to select the language after pressing ON" bug was fixed there? I searched through the User Guide for "firmware" but got no hit. So where is documented how to upgrade the firmware? And can it be done with a Mac? And where do I get the latest firmware?

Thanks a lot!

Stefan.

P.S.: Is there a screenshot utility/keystroke? Does the 39gII support GROBs (graphics objects) like my beloved 48S/SX/G/GX machines? 🙂

[Tim_Wessman]

Hello,

You can upgrade the firmware, but only on windows unfortunately.

Here is a link to it: http://www.educalc.net/2336121.page

Provided you can get access to a windows machine (or a virtual machine on your mac). The connkit should prompt you to update it. Note that due to the way the update works (the calculator appears as a "drive" under windows and then needs formatting) administrative rights to perform a disk format are required. You'll want to click the "format and update" option during the update.

[Stefan_Wolfrum]

Thanks a lot, Tim, for your help. My 39gII now has the latest firmware and the "always have to select the language after pressing on" bug is gone. 🙂

A note for Mac users: I was only able to update the firmware using vmware. Didn't work under Parallels nor under virtualbox.