Beware not to buy HP Prime, if you are engineer!

[Michael de Estrada]

I think there is a misconception that engineers use calculators as miniature computers, whereas that all ended decades ago with the ready availability of desktop microcomputers. When I was still working, I mostly used my calculator to perform simple manual tasks, such as units conversions. Sure, I had some simple programs I had written, but they were not particularly demanding of memory or cpu speed. My first calculator was an HP 35 that replaced my sliderule and my last before retirement was an HP 50g. I bought a Prime long after retirement as a toy, and if I were still working it would definitly NOT replace my HP 50g. As an engineer, I want something that is simple to use, and in that regard the 50g is better than the Prime. For example, it takes more than twice as many keystrokes and is a lot more convoluted to perform a simple units conversion on the Prime than the 50g. Also, the Prime deleted useful apps from the 50g like the Periodic Table, and replaced them with children’s apps like the Triangle Solver. No doubt HP has seen the writing on the wall, and focused on the educational market with the Prime, knowing full well that the professional market is shrinking, which explains their discontinuation of the 50g.