Re: calculatrice hp prime : deception Message #7 Posted by Tim Wessman on 20 Oct 2013, 11:31 a.m., in response to message #1 by fabrice48
I'm sorry if you felt the Prime was a 50g replacement. It is not nor was it marketed as such (by HP at least, individual vendors may have done so against our recommendations). It will most likely get there eventually once some of the rough interactions between CAS/numerical land are resolved for the majority of 50g users, but in no way was it supposed to replace the 50g in all uses or for all users. The average 50g user is, lets be honest, far outside the norm when it comes to the large mainstream market in nearly every way. I am proud to be part of that tiny market segment, as I suspect the majority of us are as well. :-)
When the calculator is used by a "normal" user, of which none of us on this forum counts as, it was very thoroughly tested has been very well received overall. Additionally, it is getting a lot of people excited about HP calculators that never before were. Which HP calculator has been discussed on both TI and Casio forums to the extent of Prime? Which has program sections in those said locations? Exactly.
Are there parts of the system that are not "complete" in that we had additional things planned that would not fit in the schedule? Of course.
I find it rather telling to look at the majority of reviews comparing the "top of the line" calulators from the big 3. It seems to me the reviewers that are *not long term HP users* have slotted Prime between the classpad, and nudging up against the nspire in several ways (and passed in others). Both of those products have *years* of being on the market, several versions of both hardware and software, and yet with the first release it is being said by most that the classpad is already passed and the nspire better watch out!
As HP users of the 50g, we have been used to complete, utter customization and control of everything. We have been used to being able to, with a few key presses, be browsing the ROM code! We look at prime and say "well that has useless programming. I can't do anything with it" - because we are used to having everything from before.
Yet the guys that have been fighting for the ability to program ANYTHING on the nspire seem to be quite amazed and happy with the programming capabilities Prime brings because it already seems to them much better then what TI offers. It really is a matter of perspective and expectations.
Your expectations were extremely high and, to be honest, I don' know if any company, ever, could hit the high expectations we as a a collective group of "hp calculator nuts" have created. I've seen a huge number of people that are extreemly excited about the calculator that I did not think would be... so at least there must be some good in it. :-)
To hit a few of your points. Memory available? With 256MB of memory in there, there is so much that at this early stage there is basically no way to fill it. Would you prefer we spent time on a memory display, or more time on something like allowing the user to create variables directly rather then limiting it to program definition only? Everything has a price in time and tradeoffs always have to be made.
RPN is not the foundation and bedrock of the system. True, there were a few annoying bugs that were missed. :-( HP is still committed to RPN, but has not been exclusively committed to it for a very long time. The tradeoff in this case was "Do we put in RPN even though we can't fully use it everywhere yet (CAS)? Or do we wait until it can be fully supported everywhere and tick everyone off who likes RPN in the meantime?" I remember with the 39gII that simply the fact that there was no RPN option made it so a large chunk of people here said they'd never even bother to look at it. (ignoring the availability issue of course which was a totally different issue) With Prime, I think a large majority of people who decided to get one have ended up pleasantly surprised and overall pleased!
Alarms and buzzer. While these are nice for a very small set of people, the rest of the world has a phone in the pocket. Should we spend time on that, or getting RPN into the CAS? I do see the benefit for being able to time things in a lab environment, but I just have a hard time justifying that as higher priority then so many other things still needing work.
Time and date. I'm not certain regarding the classpad, but I do know that the nspire has no clock like prime does. Also, tap on that corner and you get a full date display and quick angle toggle. So yes, it is there.
I'm glad that you are so passionate about HP calculators and truly do wish we could have spent additional years polishing Prime before it came out so everything would be "perfect" simply from a personal pride perspective. However, I am not sad that the product has been released because I thought, and still think, it was the time to do so. I feel it is a great unit that a lot of customers will enjoy. If you don't at this exact moment, the hopefully with future updates and enhancements you will feel so also.
TW
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Although I work for the HP calculator group, the feelings and thoughts I express here are my own.
Edited: 20 Oct 2013, 11:35 a.m.
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