Re: TI-30 user looking for a change. Message #5 Posted by Ed Look on 3 Aug 2007, 11:57 a.m., in response to message #4 by Walter B
Luke, Walter, (or anyone else!), Walter's advice is generally sound, but from direct experience, the 48G (or G+ or GX) is a bit fragile. It certainly IS a great calculator, or as MoHPC calls, a "do-everything" calculator, but to be that and yet still stay small and light enough to be portable as a calculator, it may not stand up to being tossed in a backpack every morning, whipped out several to very many times a day, tossed on a desk or table, wagged at friends to underscore that your answer might be "more better", and worst of all, dropped. I dropped my 48G only once, and it was still in its case, and now I have a blank row of pixels across the third stack position, unless I strap a rubber band around the top.
So, if you get a 48G series machine, use it at home or in the dorm. The same would apply to a 50G. I mean, these are EXPENSIVE little babies. If you are going into math and physics, you won't need any in class graphing on your calc anyway. So, I'd counsel the use of a 35s or even 33S (which really despite my and others' complaints is a pretty good calculator, but the 35s has more programming space) for class.
I got by (very well, actually) with the then-equivalent of the 33S or 35s (now that it's out), the 34C, a scientific programmable. In actuality, today's two HP scientific programmables are superior in terms of capability; mine was superior only in feel of the keys, weight of calculator and... ahem... appearance. Something about red... LEDs.
I think you might need a graphing calculator not so much at all for its graphing capability, but its much greater programmability and memory capacity.
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