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(More customer reviews)I just purchased the Sharp EL-W506 scientific calculator from the UK at a great low price (from Oxford Educational). However the new Sharp ELW516 now available on Amazon in the USA is apparently ALMOST equivalent to the Sharp EL-W506 (as indicated in the product manual, it is also equivalent to the ELW546). All three nearly identical units have been produced to replace the now discontinued Sharp EL-506WBBK calculator. These are all fabulously improved over the EL-506WBBK and I highly recommend their purchase even in comparison to the Casio FX-115ES (or FX-991ES in Europe) and even over the Casio FX-115ES Plus now available elsewhere.
PROS-
A summary of the most important improvements follows:
a) A catalog is now provided of all functions available within the machine and any of these commands can be stored on the function keys D1-D4 for easy and quick recall.
b) Write-view (Sharp trade mark) 4 line capability for displaying the full set of information on numerical evaluations of integrals and derivatives as well as any other algebraic manipulations. This is totally equivalent to the SVPAM or VPAM available on the Casio FX-115ES or ES Plus, etc.
c) A "Change" key to convert from Decimal to fractional forms and back again which is very similar to what is also found on the respective Casio machines.
d) Full control over the keyboard contrast is also now available.
e) 556 functions are claimed to be available on the new Sharp units as compared to a little over 400 on the FX-115ES (417 functions are claimed on the new FX-115ES Plus). There are also six modes that can be set to work within such as: Normal for integration, ordinary number crunching, etc., Complex numbers, Matrices, Lists, Equation solving, etc.
f) An on-screen form to be filled in is available for full and easy storage of all lists, matrices and vectors. Matrices are also easily manipulated into lists.
g) There is also a much improved set of information provided during the process of obtaining scientific constants and for the conversion of metric values to non-metric unit values as well.
h) Frequently used expressions that you are free to create are quickly and easily stored on the special keys F1-F4 for repeating computations. These same keys (unshifted) can also be used for a very useful multi-line playback of results as well. There are also separate D1-D4 keys (directly above the F1-F4 keys) for memory and expression storage as well giving the Sharp a large number of memory locations.
i) When the calculator turns off after 10 minutes of inactivity, the display resumes to indicate your results exactly where you left off and all work is NOT lost into cyberspace! This feature the Casio will not perform as all work is lost when the Casio is turned off!
j) Statistical functions are also input more intuitively and conveniently (arrangements have been changed on the keyboard) than on the EL-506WBBK as well (A set of up to 100 values can be input for 2 parameter statistics). All of the one parameter {x} and two parameter {x,y} statistical data (each separately specified with frequency of occurrence information) are also readily available on-screen with the touch of the central up-down, left-right control key, both before and after their entry for editing, etc. Unlike the Casio FX-115ES calculator which then consolidates the statistics calculations into a single isolated menu accessed from the keyboard, the Sharp has numerous specified keys shifted through the alpha key prompt to access all statistical results which makes its keyboard somewhat busy compared to the Casio, but still very useful and well organized.
k) The solutions displayed for both cubic and quadratic equations are now in a much more readable form as well as for the two and three values linear equation solutions.
l) A name or lengthy phrase with embedded spaces can also be readily stored deep within the machine that is automatically displayed with the Sharp Logo during the shutdown process. I believe that this new feature will tend to cut down on theft problems too.
m) The new EL-W506/516/546 now requires only a single LR44 backup battery unlike the EL-506WBBK which required 2 of these batteries.
n) Even after all this, its size hasn't changed at all and the new Sharps can still evaluate up to 4th order matrices whereas the Casio will only evaluate matrices as high as 3rd order!
o) The newly revised MATH menu is an excellent control feature for doing various operations within various modes as is the SET-UP control menu shifted on the same key.
CONS:
a) Numerical integrals on the new Sharp units are now a little slower to perform than on the Casio FX-115ES for example, but once complicated integrals are performed the time differences are much smaller.
Finally, in this global world of ours, I wish that both Sharp as well as Casio would do a better job of providing more reliable and truthful information not only to us the end users, but also to its N. American employees on the distribution to N. America of all of its various new products.
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Sharp EL-W516B Scientific Calculator with WriteView (Black)
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