<p>I just lost my ti-83 plus over spring break so I'm think i'll have to invest in a new calculator with college coming up... Is ti-84 good enough to take care of me?</p>
<p>Sure it is, though if you are a fan of TI calculators, I would suggest splurging on the TI-89. It is much nicer and not THAT much more expensive. That said, as a freshman you won’t have a ton of use for it. Classes like calculus will likely not allow you to use a calculator, and if they do then they are really doing you a disservice.</p>
<p>HP 50G… RPN mode: Nuff’ Said.</p>
<p>The introductory calc courses don’t allow you to use the TI-89 and above. I really like my TI-84 Plus Silver Edition. It’s got a few more features than the 83.</p>
<p>You honestly shouldn’t need ANY calculator for calculus courses.</p>
<p>Also, IMO, RPN is terrible. I know plenty of people who swear by it though. FWIW, things like Matlab, which will be used heavily by most engineers, don’t use RPN.</p>
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<p>Not true for all schools. My school lets you use any calculator that doesn’t have a keyboard. But the exams here are so theoretical that a calculator really doesn’t help you except for simplifying expressions or making massive computations. </p>
<p>I used to use a TI-84 but I switched to the 89 a year ago. I think it was a great decision. Most people complain about it because they just aren’t familiar with it, but it just does so much more. I’ve also read that it really helps for EE, which is what I’m doing. We’ll see when I get to higher level courses.</p>
<p>Yep ti-89 is definitely necessary for EE majors. Used it in most past and current upper level courses (not very useful in signals and systems type courses though). Has a cool EE tool with equations and transforms (laplace, Fourier, z). Great tool to have and worth the investment</p>
<p>In my EE courses the majority of people have a ti89. I believe its a disadvantage if you dont have one. Yes it is time consuming at first to learn all the necessary functions, but it can do so much and saves you time</p>
<p>Your brain is your best calculator.</p>
<p>No. Just kidding. I mean I am really serious.</p>
<p>Well, TI-83 is already super in the eyes of a good engineer. TI-84, 89, have additional functions that can simplify some mathematical computation (adding vectors, OH MY GOD). LOL
Also depends on your professors too.
Sometime I just use my middle school calculator. TI-34 II. Extremely advance, let me tell you.</p>
<p>And yeah, like bonehead had said, get 89 now if you want to. You can find 2nd hand at a reasonable price. If I have a computer in front of me, I sometime use wolfram alpha, or MATLAB to solve problems.</p>
<p>Vectors isn’t the useful things about an 89. The REALLY useful thing is the fact that it can do symbolic math (to a certain extent anyway), even with integrals.</p>
<p>What I did is download a free ti-89 rom on my computer, which works exactly like the $130 real life version. You should do this if you don’t want to pay $130. If you have a smartphone there are also lots of similar graphing calculator apps that you can get from $0 to $5.</p>
<p>You will never need a graphing calculator in class or on a test. Certainly not first year that’s for sure. You won’t even be allowed to use it on a test so you’ll need another calculator anyway. Do the smart thing and download Microsoft mathematics or something for free on your lappy, spend 10-15 bucks on a scientific calculator, and add the $120 you save to your beer fund. You can’t afford to be wasting money in college on silly things like calculators.</p>
<p>I never get to use a graphing calculator on any of my ee tests, so my ti-83 is of no use.</p>
<p>That being said, if ur using it for homework the best calculator is matlab or maple on your computer. You can even do Fourier transforms on those apps!</p>
<p>Well in my day it was the HP-15C - but I think you have to go to the HP Museum now to find it. 
[Bring</a> Back the HP 15C](<a href=“http://hp15c.org/hp15c.php]Bring”>http://hp15c.org/hp15c.php)</p>
<p>What?..no HP 15C mentioned?</p>
<p>Joking. :-)</p>
<p>Yes. 89 can do a lot of crazy things… consider it’s a calculator!
But something adding vectors on paper gets people paranoid. </p>
<p>I would not use the word “never”.
Some schools’ math department actually allow students to use graphing calculator.
Isn’t that a bit weird?</p>
<p>If a math department is letting their students use calculators on tests, they are screwing over their students.</p>
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<p>You’re overstating the power of a calculator. If a math department can’t make a good enough exam so that a calculator can’t help you, THEN they are screwing over their students. An exam should be theoretical, not just some laundry list of equations that students grind out. This way students must show they understand the concepts. UMich has great math and engineering programs and many of the classes let you use calculators due to the fact that the exams are heavily theoretical and a calculator would provide no significant advantage.</p>
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<p>But of course in that case, they aren’t letting you use a calculator on the test now are they? Sure they are letting you put it on your desk, but in writing the test that way, they are preventing you from having a use for it and therefore not letting you use it.</p>
If you are looking at EE then buy a TI-89 Titanium and a TI-36xII. The TI-84 is a waste of money. The ability to use complex numbers in solving simultaneously equations is amazing in circuit analysis.
I honestly used my graphing calculator very little for math/CS/engineering classes. It was nice for the classes that allowed it on tests (which was not many), but for homework and studying I ended up using Wolfram Alpha all the time instead of the calculator.