HP Prime for sale

[Stefan]

I want to get rid of my HP Prime.
It comes with the complete original accessories (USB cable + charger, CD, Quick start manual). It was bought it 30. October 2013.
The condition of the calc is "as new", since it was sitting on my desk most of the time.
Price is 120€ + Shipping (5€? or 0€ if you want to pick it up in Aachen, Germany)

Since I am in Germany (Aachen) I think it would be the best to sell to someone in Germany because of shipping costs and possible customs fees. But you can still contact me if you are not in Germany. I will then calculate the shipping costs and ask you whether the price is still okay (I guess international shipping will be around 15€). However I can not tell you if and how much your local customs fee is.

Stefan

[eried]

I offer $10 if you want to get rid of the calculator badly and your device will be donated for science (A.K.A. destruction of the battery compartment I don't want to do to mine, due chances I damage it)

[Stefan]

What do you want to do with the battery compartment?

[eried]

(01-27-2014 08:51 PM)Stefan Wrote:  What do you want to do with the battery compartment?

Answered thru PM

[Stefan]

Nice idea.
But no, I don't *hate* the my Prime (and I especially don't hate my wallet ;-) ). I just find it too impractical to use. The reason for me to prefer a calculator to a PC is that a calculator has a user interface which is tailored to enter "math stuff". However with the Prime it is different: I need twice or three times as many keystrokes as on my Nspire, and hence it becomes as inefficient as if I use a PC.
Sure, the CAS is a bit more powerful, but for the rare times I really need a powerful CAS I can use my computer running Maple.
And I am not faint-hearted I would say, since I would describe myself as a "calculator enthusiast" and "early adopter". It's not the software bugs that led me to the decision selling my Prime, since those will be fixed over time. It's the whole use concept. This can't be fixed.
Even if I sell it, I will still follow the further development. And maybe there will be a "HP Prime 2" someday which makes everything better, and then I will try it again. I also want to add that I don't think that everything is bad about the Prime. It has some interesting features and I like that it is not as locked down as the NSpires. But for me it is not worth the money if it is such a pain to use.

But that's really getting a bit OT now :-)

Price is still 120€.

[HP-Collection]

Preis in der Schweiz ist 129.-.... Da sind 120€ doch eohl etwas sehr hoch gegriffen. Ich würde dir aber gerne 70€ bieten.

[Stefan]

Wenn ich mal den für Personalcomputer üblichen Abschreibungszeitraum von 3 Jahren ansetze, dann ergibt sich bei einem Neupreis von 136€ (was auch heute noch in etwa dem üblichen Neupreis entspricht) eine monatliche Abschreibung von 3,77€/Monat. Das heißt der Zeitwert ist jetzt nach 3,5 Monaten bei 122€.
In etwa 15 Monaten wäre ich dann bei 70 €. Aber ich hoffe bis dahin hat sich schon ein anderer Käufer gefunden.

[Tugdual]

(01-27-2014 10:38 PM)Stefan Wrote:  Nice idea.
But no, I don't *hate* the my Prime (and I especially don't hate my wallet ;-) ). I just find it too impractical to use. The reason for me to prefer a calculator to a PC is that a calculator has a user interface which is tailored to enter "math stuff". However with the Prime it is different: I need twice or three times as many keystrokes as on my Nspire, and hence it becomes as inefficient as if I use a PC.
Sure, the CAS is a bit more powerful, but for the rare times I really need a powerful CAS I can use my computer running Maple.
And I am not faint-hearted I would say, since I would describe myself as a "calculator enthusiast" and "early adopter". It's not the software bugs that led me to the decision selling my Prime, since those will be fixed over time. It's the whole use concept. This can't be fixed.
Even if I sell it, I will still follow the further development. And maybe there will be a "HP Prime 2" someday which makes everything better, and then I will try it again. I also want to add that I don't think that everything is bad about the Prime. It has some interesting features and I like that it is not as locked down as the NSpires. But for me it is not worth the money if it is such a pain to use.

But that's really getting a bit OT now :-)

Price is still 120€.

Stephan, I totally agree with your analysis and you made me curious to discover the NSpires!
May be I'll sell the Prime to fund one. Which model would you recommend?

[Han]

(02-10-2014 06:24 PM)Tugdual Wrote:  

(01-27-2014 10:38 PM)Stefan Wrote:  Nice idea.
But no, I don't *hate* the my Prime (and I especially don't hate my wallet ;-) ). I just find it too impractical to use. The reason for me to prefer a calculator to a PC is that a calculator has a user interface which is tailored to enter "math stuff". However with the Prime it is different: I need twice or three times as many keystrokes as on my Nspire, and hence it becomes as inefficient as if I use a PC.
Sure, the CAS is a bit more powerful, but for the rare times I really need a powerful CAS I can use my computer running Maple.
And I am not faint-hearted I would say, since I would describe myself as a "calculator enthusiast" and "early adopter". It's not the software bugs that led me to the decision selling my Prime, since those will be fixed over time. It's the whole use concept. This can't be fixed.
Even if I sell it, I will still follow the further development. And maybe there will be a "HP Prime 2" someday which makes everything better, and then I will try it again. I also want to add that I don't think that everything is bad about the Prime. It has some interesting features and I like that it is not as locked down as the NSpires. But for me it is not worth the money if it is such a pain to use.

But that's really getting a bit OT now :-)

Price is still 120€.

Stephan, I totally agree with your analysis and you made me curious to discover the NSpires!
May be I'll sell the Prime to fund one. Which model would you recommend?

Actually, if you are going with a TI, I don't recommend an nSpire at all. A TI-89 is a much better option (though a bit less powerful in terms of CPU horsepower). The nSpire is extremely locked down, has it own set of bugs, and has one of the worst methods of input: the touchpad. I own both the color and black and white CAS models. While the software has matured over the years, I still really hate using the touchpad as a mouse. The tiny alpha keys are even worse. That said, if you like the desktop experience on a tiny screen, and don't mind that your "mouse" sometimes takes a while to react, the nSpire is not bad.

[Dominik Holenstein]

@Stefan,
Wie erwähnt wurde ist der Preis für den HP Prime in der Schweiz mittlerweile bei SFr. 129.00 angekommen, da bist du mit den geforderten € 120.00 etwas gar hoch.

Den TI-nspire CX CAS kann ich im Gegensatz zu Han sehr empfehlen, auch wenn ich den HP Prime nicht aufgeben werde. Beim CX CAS ist die Oberfläche und die Software integrierter, ausgereifter und logischer als beim HP Prime. Das Touchpad ist nach etwas Gewöhnungszeit überraschend gut zu bedienen und die eigene Tastatur für die Buchstaben schätze ich sehr.

@Han
The touchpad of the nspire CX CAS needs some time to get used to it but it proved to be very useful for me. Further, I like the own keyboard for the alpha keys.

Nonetheless, I won't give up the HP Prime. I am a long term HP calculator user (since 1988) and I am sure that HP will improve the software of the HP Prime over the next few months.

Dominik

[Stefan]

@Tugdual
Short Version: NSpire CX CAS.

Long Version:
I own the first generation NSpire CAS (the grey one with green alphakeys between the normal buttons). I personally like this Keyboard layout very much, because you can reach nearly all Symbols (even the one which are rather seldom used) which you need in 1 or 2 clicks.
The newer versions (NSpire CAS touch and NSpire CX CAS) have a different keyboard layout with fewer keys, hence more functions are mapped to one key, hence for the most symbols you need 2 clicks. I think it is not that of a big deal, both are super fast to use, and I think it depends on with which device you started. I like my keyboard better, a friend of mine (who owns the touch version) likes his better, it's really just opinion.
Sure the alpha keys are pretty tiny, but therefore you don't have to press ALPHA+"SomeKey" to enter letters (and you can read the letters on them, hehe). This makes it much more pleasant to use longer and descriptive variable names. I am 1,88m tall so my hands are pretty large but I don't have anything to complain. You *will* have typos, but therefore the NSpire has an undo function (Ctrl-Z) ;-)

My version of the NSpire CAS doesn't have a touchpad, and I never missed it because there are many Keyboard shortcuts which you will get used to very quickly. The keyboard shortcuts are actually the same as on a Computer: Ctrl-Z is undo, Ctrl-Y is redo, Ctrl-C is copy, Ctrl-X is cut, Ctrl-V is paste, Ctrl-Numpad7 is "Home", Ctrl-Numpad1 is "End" and so on. You can select text with Shift and the D-Pad (or Touchpad)
Since all generations of the NSpire use the same software (which is one of the big advantages of the NSpire series) you are not bound to use the Touchpad on the newer versions, but you can use the same shortcuts as on the original. So the Touchpad is just a bonus.

So if you ask me which NSpire you should try out I'd say get the NSpire CX CAS. As I've said, the software is exactly the same for all NSpires. But you get the nice color screen (which you don't want to miss after using the Prime) plus the touchpad and its simply a nice device. (Too bad that TI doesn't have a calc with a touchscreen)

I personally would not recommend the TI89 at all. Sure the NSpire is locked down, but after all do you want to use the calculator to work or to play gameboy games? The drawbacks of the 89 are you get a REALLY crusty screen, no "textbook-style" entry, not so nice keyboard, its much slower, and you miss all the features of the NSpire Software like seperate documents and problems which I like so much. I am sure that the NSpire has bugs as well, but since I own my NSpire (2009?) I rarely discovered malfunctions.
And if you really want to play games on the NSpire you should take a look at "Ndless" which is a hacked firmware for the NSpires. But usually you cannot use Ndless with a new Firmware version because the Ndless developers first have to find a backdoor.

Ok, this now got much longer than I thought ^^. Let me know how you decide, and how your experience is (if you buy one).

[Stefan]

@Dominik
HP-Collection hat ja nicht geschrieben dass es CHF sind. Aber gut, wenn ich die selbe Rechnung für die umgerechnet 105€ mache, dann sind es immer noch 94€ und keine 70.

Ich spekuliere einfach mal darauf, dass der Marktpreis erstnochmal fällt, solange die Händler versuchen die Ladenhüter loszuwerden, und dann wieder steigt, wenn HP kein Nachschub mehr liefert weil eine überarbeitete Version in Arbeit ist.

Ich hab es ja auch nicht eilig den Prime zu verkaufen. Nur 70€ ist wirklich arg wenig für ein quasi neues Gerät.

[Stefan]

@Tugdual
I forgot to mention that you don't necessarily have to install Ndless to play games or program more advanced programs. You can also write programs for the NSpire in Lua. Compared to the TI Basic this gives you more advanced options and full graphic capabilites, plus its much faster than TI Basic. There are quite some games out there written in Lua and also useful apps like for the periodic table of elements. Take a look at ticalc.org to get an overview.

[Stefan]

Calculator is sold.