The actuel Prime future...

[Sukiari]

(08-17-2014 03:21 PM)John P Wrote:  I was recently thinking about the future of calculators and concluded the the HP Prime was the last calculator I bought unless the HP makes some super dooper miracle calculator without bags etc but I doubt it. I decided to wait for the next iteration of the Microsoft Surface 3 Pro and if I like it I will buy it or some other fast laptop or ultra portable based on Brodwell. I will buy Mathematica 10 home license and use it. It is a waist of time to try figure out all the idiosyncracis of the HP Prime and as a calculator cell phone should be enough. The price of Mathematica home license is about twice the price of the HP Prime though for a long run I think it is worth it. I am through wit HP and I think for good.

I bought Mathematica 10 last fall. It's really amazing to have all this calculating power in a relatively sensible environment. They really thought of just about everything. Another major benefit is the ability to tap into Wolfram Alpha's enormous database of facts and figures. Want to know the relation between McDonald's stock price, the average rainfall in the Midwest, and the price of pork? This kind of thing would have entailed at least a half hour to perhaps a couple days' research to accomplish, but once you learn Mathematica you can have the answer in just a moment.

I do enjoy BASIC handhelds and HP RPN calculators as a sort of fun tool, but there really is no comparison to Mathematica for pure number crunching and ease of use. I wish HP would realize this and create something similar - 64GB of onboard facts and figures is doable and cheap in an SD card these days. Let me ask it questions in English like I can with Alpha and they'd have a product that would sell like hotcakes.