Different note app / way to store often used formulas / how to start programming

[Stefan]

(02-22-2014 08:18 AM)debrouxl Wrote:  The fact is that the Nspire is, at the time of this writing (i.e. nearly 7 years after it first hit the marketplace), a more finished and integrated product than the Prime (which first hit the marketplace less than 6 months ago) is.

Sure it is unfair to compare such a young product to a product which has proven itself 7+ years on the market. But its also a fact that *HP knew the competition*. So releasing the product in the current state, was either dumb or presumptuous.
I consider myself (and I think most of the users in this forum) as an early adopter and tech lover, hence I am really quite forgiving when it comes to *software* bugs because of that. But there are so many basic things missing (e.g. Undo, Redo, Documents), not working (e.g. CAS/Numeric integration) or too complicated (e.g. Copy/Paste, modifying expressions), and which shout for a new hardware revision. But this would mean that everyone who bought the Prime early and thus helped to improve it to a state where its usable, burned 100-150$.

(02-22-2014 08:18 AM)debrouxl Wrote:  The Nspire's polish and abilities are far from being perfect, that said:

I don't state that the NSpire is perfect, but it definitely has set a bar for calculators in usability and features.
I really would like the Prime to be successful. It has great (internal) hardware specs, and I like the touchscreen (edit: and I also like the Advanced Graphing App. I would love it even more if they wouldn't have called it "App" just to sound cool ^^). And I don't like that the NSpire is locked up so much. But I also must say that I never missed anything despite being locked up. It just annoys me because, being a Linux geek, I like things being open. But in the end it doesn't matter in 99% of the use cases (which are not only school purposes btw.).
But lets face it: If HP targets the education sector, than "the education sector" will demand that the exam mode is tamper proof. And to ensure this the best way (from a company's standpoint) is to lock up your product like crazy. So although this is speculation, I am not sure how long the "openness" point will be valid for the Prime.