HP Prime
Serial number 4CY345000D
Accessories Hardcover, CD-ROM with connectivity software and manuals, USB cable and power adapter
Condition Mint out of the plastic cover box
Repairs, Comments
Acquired 14.11.2014
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Type, Precision, Input mode Scientific, 12 BCD digits, exponent ±499, Algebraic and Reverse Polish Notation
Programmable Yes. Programs can be entered using the "Program" menu (Shift-1). The programming language is Pascal oriented.
Performance Index 12454, see further down for the test program
Memory 32 MByte DDR, 256 MByte Flash
Display 320 x 240 pixel color graphics TFT display, touch-sensitive
Special features USB-port, color and touch-sensitive display, 400 MHz ARM9 processort
Original Pricing, Production 139 Euro in 11/2014
Batteries Built-in, recharges over USB-cable when connected to a PC or power supply.
Dimensions Length 18.2cm, Width 8.5cm, Height 1.4cm
Links HP-Prime Homepage (German)
HP Prime Graphing Calculator User Guide (PDF, English, 555 pages, Edition 1, May 2013)
HP Prime Graph-Taschenrechner Kurzanleitung (PDF, Deutsch, 78 pages, Ausgabe 1, 1.5.2013)
HP Prime Tutorial Series 1, Series 2, Series 3, Series 4 (PDF)
Comment Well, not bad! Without any doubt there's a gazillion of cool programs and tools and educational examples stored in 256 MB of flash memory. The quarter-VGA display comes with colors, something that became only recently state of the art in the pocket calculator realm. What really surprised me was the touch-sensitivity of the display!
The keys offer a nice feedback very close to the old and famous HP calculators. But the printing on the keys is ugly, looks cheap, and is hard to read. Especially the text printed in the signal orange color.

The CD-ROM comes with two PC programs:
  • A "Connectivity Kit" which allows to transfer data between the Prime and the PC. Most notably, it allows to directly enter and edit programs. Very convenient!
  • A "Virtual Calculator" application which simulates the Prime in a Windows program. Version 6031 of this program still seems to be a bit unstable. Here's a screenshot.
Test program Here's the test program to determines the Prime's performance index (curtesy Tom Lake):
  EXPORT TEST()
  BEGIN
  LOCAL N,L,X,T1,T2;
  N:=1000;
  T1:=TICKS;
  REPEAT
     L:=10;
     REPEAT
        X:=L;
        X:=X+1;
        X=X-4.567E-4;
        X:=X+70;
        X:=X-69;
        X:=X*7;
        X:=X/11;
        L:=L-1;
     UNTIL L==0;
     X:=LN(X);
     X:=SIN(X);
     X:=√X;
     X:=√X;
     N:=N-1;
  UNTIL N==0;
  T2:=TICKS;
  PRINT(T1+" "+T2+" "+(T2-T1));
  END;

Note that "TICKS" returns the current CPU time in milli-seconds.
The execution time of this program is reproducably around 2.73 seconds.
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