The Prime is just an Expensive Toy

[medwatt]

I got the Prime (G2) a few months go but despite my best attempts, I can't see how the Prime is more useful to me compared to a conventional scientific calculator. I am in electrical engineering and the type of things I usually usually waste a lot of time on (and would therefore want to be able to quickly do on a calculator) are calculating the Fourier Transforms, doing triple integrals with vectors (like Maxwell equations), checking the response of a system to a step or ramp, looking at the Nyquist/Bode/Root Locus plots and checking the stability margins, etc. You get the point. I cannot do any of these things on the Prime.

Even though the Prime is many times more powerful than the Ti-89, the Ti-89 can do more than the Prime simply because you can find a package for almost anything on the Ti-89. The 3rd-party control toolbox for the Ti-89 is far better than anything on the Prime. You want to do Cauchy integral on the Ti-89? There's an app out there that can do just that. You want to do Stoke's Theorem quickly? There's an app just for that. I can understand if the Prime was some calculator running on a 25MHz processor, but this is a device that is almost as fast as a smartphone from a few years back. Yet, it doesn't make use of all the power. At this point, it seems the only thing the Prime can do better than conventional calculators is boast that it can render a plot quicker, but definitely not in terms of functionality. The Ti-89 still has far more capability (functionality-wise) than the Prime. The prime reminds me of all those cheep phones or android tv boxes you get from china; they have excellent specs but not the software that makes use of the hardware.

Now, we come to the programming part. I thought I could maybe write some of my own stuff. Why does everyone want to have their own programming language? I am not interested in spending hours/days trying to learn another programming language that I can only use on a single device. I'm already proficient enough in Python, like most people that went to school in the past decade or so. Why can't the Prime support python? Oh, it's in development and I need to wait 3 years before it's ready or if it is ready at all. By that time, I have no need for the thing anymore.

I think I am going to sell my Prime and probably continue using my Casio 991DEX or Ti-89 (when it's allowed) and Python/Matlab on my computer for the more involved stuff. The pinnacle of calculators were the Ti-89 and HP 50g. Everything else that came after them were just gimmicks (including the Nspire series). The Prime boasts of a Triangle Solver app. Seriously? This just tells you that the Prime is not meant for people doing serious things. I'll not be buying any new calculator until one comes out that supports Python with numpy and scipy.