HP50g spins circles around the TI-89

[DMaier]

(05-01-2015 11:25 AM)Marcio Wrote:  If your kid were to sit a physics test in the next couple of days. You know he knows little of math, which calculator would you give to him, the 50g or the Prime?

The 50g has a steep learning curve and assumes you know math already. The Prime, on the other hand, assumes you are a student, therefore you are learning the basics. It's a bit unlikely kids will be able to find as many bugs on the Prime because they don't have enough experience under their belts to squeeze the machine to the point it becomes useless (as many experienced 48 users have found it to be).

If the choice was limited to the 50g and the Prime (hopefully, no child will be damaged by this thought experiment), and given that physics typically involves units of measure, this might be one case where the 50g is worth the learning investment. I'm sure that any student trying to use the Prime with units of measure will quickly discover bugs that render it unusable.

However, given that every student of ordinary abilities needs to have a TI-83/84 for math class, I'd probably stick with that. The NSpire is definitely a better calculator, but the teacher will exclusively use the TI-84 for lessons in the classroom, and it's difficult for ordinary students to keep up using anything else, even another TI calculator.