What would you like to see in a future HP Prime II? (HP Prime², HP Prime 2X)

[jonmoore]

I know the two major distributors of educational calculators here in the UK fairly well, Oxford Supplies and ScienceStudio. It's their opinion that the era of large graphical/scientific calculators, with or without CAS, is over. Look at the number of refreshes Casio has made to their mid-market education calculators since they launched the FX-CP400 ClassPad II back in 2013. It's had refreshes but mainly to add an examination/test mode to appease examination boards. The OS itself has hardly changed since Casio launched the ClassPad back in 2003. To make matters worse, all models are using an ancient ARM SoC, which was underpowered back in 2013.

Incidently, if you collect Casio calculators and live in the UK, you can pick up a CP400 ClassPad II from ScienceStudio at by far the best price (in comparison to anything I've seen since COVID on Amazon on eBay). The reason ScienceStudio are selling at a reasonable price, is because they couldn't get their hands on any units during COVID, when demand for the unit was high, and consequently ordered far too many, but unfortunately the demand fell away post-COVID, as Casio are now pouring most of their efforts into ClassPad for Web/tablets and suchlike. If one subscribes to the ClassPad WebApp, they also get to use the full ClassPad calculator on their mobile and tablet devices (as well as having access in those mobile browsers that support the advanced JavaScript engine).

The likes of GeoGebra and Desmos made Casio change their ClassPad strategy.

For all I say about the ClassPad being underpowered, it was innovative, it's just a pity the Casio engineers didn't evolve on their initial concepts. And on that basis, I still think it's a good purchase if you don't already own it. As long as you stay away from the graphing aspect, it's great. It's especially good for CAS, statistics and business math, as it features the best spreadsheet of any calculator to date. I like to compare CAS results between the CP400, the Nspire and the Prime CAS. In general, they all provide correct results, but they all simplify differently at times. This can spin a lazy student's noggin, when they compare their calculator's results to what they see in their textbooks.

Back to the Prime, I really hope that Moravia carries on developing the OS. Unlike Casio, HP always stuck powerful processing capabilities in the Prime and the G2 processor will keep the Prime trucking for a few years yet. Plus the Prime is the only calculator that breaks free from its primary marketing segment, namely education. Even though it has a weak RPN capability, it's far more interactive than using the Nspire or the ClassPad. And much as the bling design is aimed at students, it looks less like a student calculator than the other options.