Re: Forced to buy a TI-89 for school....I feel dirty Message #14 Posted by Ron Ross on 31 Aug 2010, 2:53 p.m., in response to message #1 by Jimi
I took a lot of flak for rating the Ti-89 over the Hp 50g in my calculator review.
http://www.rskey.org/buyguide.pdf
However, the Ti-89 is the natural upgrade path for the Ti-83/84 line (which 90+% of high schooler’s use) and most people do not know or want to adopt the advantages of RPN. Since most people who buy graphing calculators wouldn’t switch over to RPN on the Hp50G, the Ti-89 is a better algebraic calculator and I was forced to endorse that calculator from an objective view. I noted that trig functions (and other often used functions) are second shifted functions.
However, a flaw of the Hp 50G (that is not realized or noticed by RPN users) is the poor units’ conversion and the flawed vector functions / features in algebraic mode.
For RPN user’s that use the Hp50G for common vector math, put it in algebraic mode and try your hand at using it. If the Hp50G had implemented its algebraic function set better, I would have happily endorsed it as the superior calculator.
That left me with the dilemma of recommending a superior (Hp50G in RPN mode) calculator to an audience of 80+% that would not use it in RPN. Therefore the superior calculator for the normal algebraic user is the Ti-89 for the majority of applications. The La’Place and Fourier transforms functions of the Hp50G can be of use to some of these users’ but the majority are best served by a Ti-89.
Power user’s often augment their high end calculator with a Math package as well or often bypass the high end calculator market altogether. With the popularity of notebooks and low cost math software, this is certainly another option.
I welcome positive feedback from my knowledgeable friends on this review and will take serious offense to wild, unsubstantiated, biased, ridiculous criticism from all other crazy fanatics. However, every so often, I sometimes listen to the crazy fanatics too. ;o)
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