HP Prime or HP 50g

[JDW]

Thank you for your opinion. My first HP was the 28S purchased in 1989 when I started engineering school. I used it throughout college and in my professional life for years, until some of the keys would occasionally fail (still work but only if I press on them REALLY HARD). I then bought a 48GX, and added an FRAM card with Meta Kernel, and I continue to use that at the office. I also purchased a 50g for home use. I love RPN and would not use any HP in algebraic mode, nor would I purchase a purely algebraic calculator for myself.

With that said, you're previous post described the Prime not merely as "crap" but as "pure crap," which in my book is defined as "100% crap" or "100% worthless." For truly, what use do you have of 100% crap except for fertilizing your garden? Sorry, but I am a straight shooter with the English language and so I cannot help but be bewildered by emotionally-charged and somewhat meaningless terms like "crap" (whether it be pure, 50%, or crap with less fat).

Cutting to the chase, what I like and want is not always what is most appropriate for my children, one of whom is in Jr. High and the other in 10th grade. Their school STRONG RECOMMENDS the ancient TI-83 Plus, which I am not inclined to buy for them, but I do see it on the College Board list of approved calculators, along with the 50g and Prime. My children are less nerdy that I am and my thinking is that a calculator that is not only College Board approved but also offers CAS (which again is College Board approved) might be a good choice for them, even if the calculator is used by them mostly in Algebraic mode. In other words, "Algebraic mode" is not a curse word to me, even though I have great experience and love for RPN. I am open-minded.

I've actually showed my children the 50g and offered to allow them to use it, but they haven't warmed up to it like I have, even when I put it in algebraic mode. No surprises since most high schoolers really don't like math in the first place! Funny, but I didn't either, which makes it all the more curious I chose to be an EE! (I like a challenge.) But the fact remains that I got my first "real" calculator in college, not high school.

And so, I am mulling the Prime for my kids. And hey, that would give me a change to toy with it too (a real machine, as opposed to an simulated calc on my computer screen, which I have used). My kids seem interested in either the TI-84 Plus CE or the Prime, but most likely because they are the iOS generation whose eyes quickly get transfixed on devices with color screens. But clearly the Prime will win this fight because it has a touch-screen too!

I just am personally curious about why there are no useful libraries for the Prime like for the 50g and earlier calcs. (And please don't tell me, "It's because the Prime is crap." Please!) To repeat my earlier post, which thus far not a single person has dared to comment directly upon...

The 50g has this:
http://www.software49g.gmxhome.de

Yet the only similar library I could find for the Prime is this "demo of things to come":
https://www.hpcalc.org/details/7737

Specifically it says, "This will be more comprehensive once complex number support is added to the HP Prime solver, but for now it is just a demo of what is to come."

Could someone "in the know" please explain to me what is meant by "more comprehensive complex number support" on the Prime? I thought the Prime supported complex numbers already.

Thank you.