newbie impressions

[gteague]

first, let me hasten to add i'm an hp prime newbie, but not a newbie to electronic gadgets and software. i actually got this calculator about 6 months ago when amazon promoted it, but other than briefly testing it i've gone on to other projects (such as building my small collection of other cp calcs back up as i lost all mine in a recent move) and just pulled it out again yesterday when i was trying to decide whether i needed an hp-48gx or maybe even a <gasp> ti-inspire cas.

so what is the thinking on having it automatically power up when you plug it into power? if i want to charge it, i hardly want a huge, color, backlit display sucking out my current. also, as i posted in another thread which everyone seems to have abandoned, it charged just fine yesterday in about 2.5 hours at around 600mah and the battery is 1500mah, so that's nearly exactly the correct amount of time.

but, with hardly any use after a full charge, it suddenly alerted saying the battery was critically low and and the green light started blinking. i asked questions about exam mode in the other thread with no response. so today i put it back on the charger and now it's not acting right. it's pulling too much current (660mah) for too long (over 3 hours now). i did discover the damm thing had turned on under the cover and hopefully that's why it's taking so long.

so while it was charging i decided to try the hp-connect software. i despise windows, but since there's no mac support i know i'll have to use it to update the firmware since hp didn't put in an sd card slot. most cameras update their firmware by simply putting the file on this card and having the camera read it and that would have been my choice for calculators as well so everyone, no matter their os, could updated their calculator.

when i turned on the calculator, _another_ hp-prime showed up in the left-hand panel. this could not be more confusing. which one do i use? why are there two? and it's not like it acts consistently either--sometimes if you turn off the calc, one will go away and then sometimes it comes back.

it's not at all clear that if you use the calculator while it's connected whether it's interacting with the app or not. there's /messages/ and /monitor/ panels and unless those are for group and classroom use, i have no idea how they're interacting with each other. and one or the other seems to be connected to the hp prime emulator app supplied with the connectivity pack, but not to the actual calculator.

<sigh> i guess i'm in for 8 hours of reading docs. at my age i hate to put that much time into learning something i'm not even sure i want to use yet. but there's so many gotacha issues the newbie is going to run afoul of that you can't just forge ahead and learn as you go it seems.

anyway, if anyone has tips on what to read first, it might save me some time. i have a whole folder full of dozens of docs and tutorials. i'm starting with the quick start guide in the meantime.

/guy