HP Prime vs TI-84 Plus CE for Jr. High and High School

[JDW]

Thank you for the reply, but again, the calculator is not going to be for me, and therefore my personal love for RPN is not relevant to this discussion. I am also not too concerned about connectivity kits. I am talking about my children who are adept in Algebraic mode calculators and who prefer them, and who's school is "strongly recommending" the TI-83 Plus, for reasons that are beyond my comprehension.

Until now, my daughter has been using the following CASIO calculator which cost all of $15 and her math teachers didn't complain about it and she seems to be comfortable using it:

https://www.amazon.co.jp/gp/product/B00AFN7MIA/

But like I said in my opening post, the school has just now started to STRONGLY RECOMMEND the TI-83 Plus, hence my post here.

The Prime is probably overkill for 7th to 10th graders in terms of power and features, but in terms of COST, the TI-83 Plus and TI-84 Plus CE are about the same price and in the same ballpark as the HP Prime! To me, that just shows how much of a monopolistic lock TI still has on the US market for calculators. So in my frugal engineer's mind, I am saying to myself, "If the 20 year old TI-83 Plus and equally out-of-date TI-84 Plus cost about as much as the Prime, why NOT get the Prime instead?" It would be going against the school's recommendation, of course. But the Prime is on the CollegeBoard website of approved calculators so I don't see it as being a problem.

But again, my question centers on EASE OF USE for Jr. High and High School students. Is it really prudent of me as a parent to follow the school's STRONG RECOMMENDATION of a TI-83 Plus (or a TI-84 Plus CE) rather than buy what I see as a better calculator like the Prime? Would the Prime be more formidable in terms of usage for a 7th grader to use than a TI-83 Plus, for example? Are there any high school students even using the Prime?