The HP/Royal/Moravia website problems thread

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(08-05-2022 11:24 PM)rprosperi Wrote:  Wow, harsh!

The Prime manual is pitifully out of date (3+ years from latest f/w release) and though having 760+ pages, still far from complete, but I'm pretty sure it's easy to find other calculator manuals with lower standards, from completeness, accuracy, scope and many other perspectives as well. It ain't pretty for sure, but far from the ugly duckling of the bunch.... IMHO.

Maybe I've been spoiled with their high-quality standard until the excellent HP-48. And the HP-50g had a pretty good manual set too, but only digital which is really annoying for a calculator.

Is it really a harsh assessment? The device only comes with a quick start guide, and the downloadable UG looks as if they couldn't decide whether to produce a reference or a guide but failing on both sides... and as you said, it is outdated. Important notions such as integrals and diff equations are barely mentioned, it's mostly focused on apps. For example, the 'assume' declaration is only mentioned, the way functions must be used in RPN and how to give them parameters is guess work. Or maybe I missed it, but it's not for want of searching. Most of the info can only be found on the Internet from people who accidentally found how something worked.

And don't get me started on the software itself. As for the hardware, it is good except this silly idea of mounting the display upside down.

The HP Prime had potential but both the software and the manuals are abysmal. Maybe HP was counting on the fact both the firmware and the manuals could be updated to improve them over time, but it's been almost 9 years since the first release. Even the website is terrible, last time I clicked to get more information on the calculator, I was presented with details on a shredder.

We can only hope Moravia Consulting improves things, I'm told there was an important upcoming update. To be honest, I haven't followed who did what between the HP-Moravia transition.

Perhaps other calculators are not better, but it's never a good sign when one is compared to the worst. It's not what I'd expect of a 170€ calculator, nor from HP.