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

[JDW]

(07-15-2018 04:23 PM)grsbanks Wrote:  One great thing about the 84+CE is that you can program it in C.

Thank you for pointing that out. I'm sure that information will be useful for some. But my children are the typical "math is NOT fun" types who merely want the best College Board approved calculator they can get, use it through classes, ace their tests, and then set it aside if at all possible. Even I myself, who am an EE now, never really liked math in school. That is due in part to instructors and in part to textbooks. Unless you have no right-brain at all, math isn't naturally what I would call enjoyable, even when you come to understand it. Mathematicians and many in this forum may disagree, but no surprises there. This isn't a criticism of those who love math, but it is a reality among your average person, even in countries which typically have high math scores relative to the USA.

So what I am saying is that when you purchase a calculator for a student, its programmability is a consideration. But after a very long multi-day conversation with my own children, programmability isn't a key concern at all for them.

In the end, I purchased 2 HP Primes from Walmart, since Walmart has the lowest price I could find outside Amazon, at about $118 (pre tax). Amazon has them but only through 2 marketplace sellers which are very fishy. There's one selling for $116 on Amazon, but reading through the comments we find it's the Spanish package version, imported to the US, of all things. And while I am well aware you can switch the calculator to English, why not pay $2 more and get a nice package and printed materials in a language (English) you can understand? It's also terribly unfortunate that HP doesn't appear interested in selling the Prime, as evidenced by the fact the HP US site shows a gray "Out of Stock" badge right next to "ships in 1 business day," which surely would confuse potential buyers. And since I live in Japan, I checked the HP Japan site, but their site doesn't even list the Prime at all, not even if you search for it! So even though I made an informed decision in buying the Prime, I also feel somewhat stupid too. Not because the calculator is bad, but because HP is clearly doing nothing to sell the thing properly. That to me is simply mind-boggling.