35s with a broken Enter key... worth repairing?

[Ron Ross]

Don't feel bad. That key click feedback is why you buy an Hp.

And now is a great time for your daughter to upgrade. If the Hp 35s were a true pocket calculator, I would be a big fan, but it has nearly the same foot print as an Hp 48g. Yeah, its thinner, but only a tad size smaller in area and doesn't fit in anything but my cargo pants' pockets as well.

As for the Hp 50G vs the Hp Prime, I admit, I feel the build quality of the Hp Prime is significantly better. Hp did a lot of things right with the Hp Prime from an Hp user's point of view. Stupidly so though, because the ENTER key is the Equals key and that is halfway up on this calculator vs on the lower right corner like ALL other algebraic calculators. It feels like an RPN calculator, but comes out of the box in Algebraic mode. And the RPN integration isn't to bad, it easily mimics an Hp 35s with an unlimited stack and but with a CASIO like interface. To someone who isn't familiar with the Hp48/50G series line, it is as good as any Ti or Casio. However, compared to an Hp 50G, it lacks quite a bit of High End power (to be fair, most people aren't going to miss that HIGH END power).

Where the Hp 50G excels over the Hp Prime is Units conversions, Matrix manipulation and vector math, not necessarily because the Hp Prime lacks these features, but because they are not implemented nearly as well (I am prejudiced by my knowledge of the Hp48/50G in this area though). By adopting a CASIO like interface, the Hp Prime gave up seamless integration between the math offerings. Perhaps there are ways to circumvent this, but I haven't discovered them (to be fair, I don't use my Hp Prime nearly as much as I should or could).

But to someone moving up from an Hp 35s, the Hp Prime is a pretty good transition. And if transitioning from a Ti graphing calculator, it is also a lot less painless and perhaps better than an Hp 50G. It has RPN, it does have units conversions (probably a direct knock off of the Ti-89, and done just like the Hp 50G w/o flag 117 set), and a CAS interface and basically a really good algebraic machine with the EQUALS key in the WRONG place. An Hp 35s user wouldn't compare to the Hp 50G, but to their Hp 35s, where it is a big step up in everything, capabilities, HARDWARE, touchscreen, everything.