Ti84 vs NSpire

[Chris Pemberton]

Preface:  I've never touched a Ti calculator before... only HP48/49/50/Prime.

My daughter's high school classes are going to use Ti83/84.

  

I would prefer that she use a Ti NSpire CX (non-CAS) as it seems to be a superior investment and, according to the Ti website, the non-CAS models are allowed on standardized tests.

Question:  Do the 83/84 and NSpire models have completely different interfaces?  Anything in common?  Function names?  Etc.. Or are they completely different?

As an example, I come from the HP camp ( HP48/49/50/Prime).  Is the NSpire as different from the 83/84 as the Prime is from the 48/49/50s?

She is a very bright student and would have zero issues learning the NSpire on her own, but if there are no compelling reasons to upgrade to the NSpire over the 83/84 then we would not waste the additional effort.

Her instructors do not have any issues with her using a device other than the 83/84, but she would have to figure out the differences on her own.

Unfortunately I cannot let her use our HP48/49/50/Primes as they are not allowed on the SAT/ACT so best to not invest her time getting proficient with those.

Thanks. 

[John K]

Hi, Chris,

I'm 66 now, but in the last two years, I re-took all the advanced math classes that I aced in High School; but the college-level classes (not the intro classes): Algebra, Trigonometry, Calculus 1, Calculus 2, and Probability/Statistics.

BEFORE I took these classes, I was all for telling students to get the better calculator when they were allowed ... but after being a student for these five classes, I now always recommend getting the calculator that will be used for classroom demonstrations.

All the classes I took (so far) recommended any of the various TI-84 calculators, but in each case, I could have used a non-CAS nSpire.  When my professors wanted to demonstrate how to do things, they always used the 84, and anyone with different calculators had to (usually) figure out how to do it on one of the other allowed calculators. I do own a CAS model of the nSpire, and an HP Prime, and on occasion, I did try to use it to get an answer, and found that there are significant differences between the two (three) calculators, so much that I very rarely bothered to use the nSpire.  You might say that it was frustrating to try to do the same thing on the nSpire or the Prime, but each of them have their benefits, like more memory, etc.

Needless to say, I recommend that you get your daughter an 84. She could, of course, learn the nSpire as extra credit, but class demonstrations will make more sense when she uses the 84.

Let me also recommend that you not only get her an 84, but specifically, I recommend you get her the newest model, the CE, because last year, they issued an OS upgrade that adds new features and keywords to the CE that are not available in any of the previous 84's, not even in the Silver Edition. For example, piecewise functions and "cut and paste".

I wrote up a few of the differences on this web page:  www.mazes.com/ti-84-ce 

John
Jo...@Mazes.com

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[Chris Pemberton]

Thanks for the information.  

I think we will definitely go with the 84 Plus CE.  We were leaning that way, and you convinced us to move forward.

Another reason for the CE is the color screen.  When it is 11:00 PM at night, and you are still working homework, the extra contrast on the color model is wonderful for the eyes.

The CE models come in many colors.

Blue is out, as some of the key labels are also printed in a blue font.  Really don't need blue-on-blue late at night.

We will probably go with black as the button labels really pop on that model.

As an example, the HP Prime has an awesome color display, but the button fonts and colors the HP designers used are low-contrast.  

I don't know how that design ever made it into production. They did improve the font colors later... but I got an early model.

And they crammed all of the button text onto the button, not on and above the buttons.  So they needed a smaller font.

Probably looked great on the 24" monitor the designer used to design it.

Thanks for the advice.  I will ignore my affection for the HP models and try something new.

[John K]

Be sure you are aware, when you look at the color screens, that the color screen of the Silver Edition is on a calculator that has slightly fewer commands. Both are good, but the CE is better.

Have fun with learning the new (to you) calculator, both of you.

John
Jo...@Mazes.com