Sharp EL-W516B Scientific Calculator with WriteView (Black) by Sharp HO
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Our Price: $39.00 Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days Category: CE See more digital camera details and other models |
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Digital camera reviews of Sharp EL-W516B Scientific Calculator with WriteView (Black)
Digital camera Review: Great calculator but manual is insufficient.
Summary: 5 Stars
This sharp El-516 is a really sophisticated tool for math, algebra, engineering students etc. However I found the instruction manual too elemental to truely get the best from this calculator. For example I doesn't explain how to solve a simple equation like; 3x-2=19 where x=7. Something I can easily do with my Casio
FX-115Es. Help!
Digital camera Review: Great for Pre-Algebra & College Algebra
Summary: 5 Stars
So, I forgot my Casio calculator at home, and waiting for me at school was the mid-term. I drove right to a brick and mortar store and ran in to find that they have many calculators to chose from, just calling me, wanting to come home with me. I could've picked up the same Casio I had at home, but I didn't. I thought I try a new calculator so I picked up this Sharp EL-W516. Boy, it's been good to me so far. I've used it for two classes already and I don't feel a need to buy a fancy graphing calculator just yet. Yes, it doesn't do graphing, but that's fine. At this price, it's a steal; especially for a poor college student.Digital camera Review: Great for the price
Summary: 5 Stars
Thu 11 Mar 2010 04:36:24 PM
I purchased the calculator for [...] from Amazon. I think it's an excellent value for the money. I purchased it to act as a back-up to my aging and beloved HP calculators. I've been using RPN nearly exclusively since the HP-45 came out (I had a TI calculator with a mag card reader around 1977, but that was my only prior algebraic calculator), so it's a bit tough to switch to an algebraic calculator. However, since this calculator is intended for simple calculations, it's not too big of a burden.
Since I went to college before calculators were invented, I'm STILL impressed by the time these things save over manual arithmetic calculations with log tables and slide rules. Few folks today have any appreciation for what horrible drudgery the manual methods were. So it's hard for me to think ill of any electronic calculator, even just a simple four-banger.
Overall, this is a calculator appropriate for high school science students; it's also suitable for freshman-level college math (i.e., first year calculus stuff). It is not powerful enough for a working scientist or engineer, as I feel they should be using programmable calculators. My favorite calculator of all time is the HP-42s, which is a perfect size and feature set for my needs. For anything it can't handle, I'll be using a computer. I also have an HP-49g+ which has an amazing amount of power, but one of the worst keyboards in the world, so I rarely use it.
I won't bother detailing the features, as you can get the manual from Sharp's web page and figure out some of the things it can do. I'll list the things I like and don't like.
Likes
* Once you work through the manual and examples, the features are easy to understand and use.
* The display is excellent and very readable.
* I like that the stack of previous calculations is maintained through power cycling. Apparently the Casios don't do this; this is a key reason why I chose the Sharp over the Casio.
* The integration (via Simpson's rule) and the root-finding (via Newton's method) features are easy to use and work well. Integration is slow (simple examples I typed in took 15 seconds or more), but that's OK. There's also a sum button that will evaluate finite sums and that's handy and easy to use. I would have preferred an adaptive integration routine like the HP-42s uses, as it will stop when the display accuracy is reached. But Simpson's rule is a HELL of a lot easier to program. :^)
* I LOVE the solar cell and one LR-44 battery and I know the battery will last a long time. This was the most important feature of the calculator for me.
Dislikes (or "could be improved" or "things I would change")
* My biggest beef about the calculator is that it displays results as fractions if it can. You have to press the CHANGE key to cycle through proper fraction, improper fraction, and decimal number forms. I think the design mistake made is that the user should have a setting that allows him to either select this behavior or a behavior that always displays numbers in decimal form. The reason is that when I'm doing numerical work, I want to see the decimal number because a) it's easiest to parse and b) I immediately know the magnitude and can compare it to my mental estimate.
* The names and abbreviations for some things were likely chosen by someone to whom English wasn't a native language. For example, if you want to change the display mode or number of digits shown, you have to pick a menu named "FSE". This makes no sense to me, although with a little thought, it probably is an abbreviation for "floating point, scientific and engineering". I feel a better name for this would be "DISPLY". My point here is that the names should be chosen to minimize the dependence on having to read the manual (which I had to do to figure out how to change the display).
* I was disappointed to find that the calculator only does simple arithmetic with complex numbers. I would have liked to be able to have it calculate the elementary functions too, like my HP-42s does. But I understand the engineering constraints they were under to shoehorn the firmware into a small space and keep the cost down, so it's pretty obvious why this stuff wasn't included (and it's not a feature high school or beginning college students really need).
* I would change the keyboard layout if I could. I use the square root and reciprocal functions a lot, so I'd want them to be accessible without pressing a shift key. The square key could go to a shifted key. But these are personal preferences and, as a designer, I think Sharp did a good job of laying out all those functions (it's not an easy task).
* I can't understand why they'd put a base 5 key in for integer calculations. I use decimal, hex, octal, and binary frequently and I can see the need for those.
* A minor gripe is that the conversions for length are cm to inch and not mm. Most engineers and scientists use mm rather than cm, at least in my experience.
* A long-time gripe I've had with every calculator ever produced is that they don't provide a "sig" mode. This would be a fixed/scientific mixed mode (i.e., overflows to scientific) that would display a specified number of significant figures. This is the default mode I use in a command line RPN calculator I wrote [...] -- I use it virtually exclusively.
Overall, this is a fine calculator and works well for the simple uses I will put it to. A few years back I bought my daughter the top of the line Casio scientific calculator and I feel this Sharp model beats it. One of the main reasons is the calculation stack is retained in memory and, if the calculator powers down while you're in the middle of something, you're back working on it when you turn it on. The Casio can't do this.
Digital camera Review: How to set answers to decimals instead of fractions
Summary: 4 Stars
Good calculator with lots of functions. Tip for others trying to set answers to display as decimals instead of fractions without pressing the change button all the time: press the yellow "2nd F" button -> press 2 (Editor) -> press 1 (Line). Now all your answers should display in decimals instead of fractions.Digital camera Review: I don't want fractions displayed!
Summary: 1 Stars
This is a nice calculator but I don't like that it displays calculation results as fractions instead of decimal whenever possible! In order to see the decimal display, you have to hit the change key once or twice. It is really inconvenient to have to do this on a frequent basis! I have no need to see fractions!! I just want to see a decimal display only! I searched the manual to see if I could make it display results in decimal as a default, but as far as I can tell there is no way to change it! That sucks. It will always display fractions whenever it can so you always have to hit the change button to see it in decimal form. I think the calculator should allow you to set your preference so that it always displays results in decimal and then hit the change button to see it in fraction form IF you want to. What the hell - I learned about fractions in elementary school and I don't need this calculator to teach me fractions NOW! If I knew it was this way, I would not have bought it. I think it is really stupid to design it this way and I don't know how this helps anyone. I have used decimals all my life on calculators and now I get this fancy shmancy new calculator that insists on showing off that it can display fractions every dang time.