Yeah, I remember some people in the past over here (although one was just a plain HP fanboy who thought HP calcs were perfect in every way, even community size) have mentionned that the 49g series were much better, CAS-wise, although some stuff were better on the Nspire. The issue with HP calcs is that some people found them too hard to use because of SysRPL and RPN, which is probably why HP has expanded the newer models so that RPN use isn't required and the language is closer to Ti/Casio BASIC.

The major issue with the 49g itself, though, was the keypad. IIRC, keys were overly clunky and the keypad would eventually break. The 50g supposedly fixed that, though. On the other hand, I find Casio PRIZM and CP400 keys to be too soft.