<p>I will be entering my sophomore year in high school soon and I will need a graphing calculator. I want it to be usable for all of my classes throughout high school. Here are the classes I have in mind:
Precalculus
AP Stats
AP Calculus BC
AP Physics (haven't decided which one yet)
AP Chemistry
(maybe Calculus III)?
I believe I should buy a TI graphing calculator because that's what everyone uses in my school. But I don't have the slightest clue on which one I need. Do you think a TI - 83 plus would get me through all of my classes? Or how about a TI - 84 Plus (with color display)?
Or would I need something else?
Please help me out someone, I'll appreciate your advice. Thanks in advance!</p>
<p>I have been using a TI-83 to teach and to take classes during the summers since about 1995. A TI-83 is plenty of calculator for any or all if the classes you’ve named.</p>
<p>But if I were buying new now, I might opt for an 84 instead of an 83. Not for the sake of color though.</p>
<p>In my experience the color display drains the battery faster and makes the calculator run a tiny bit slower than the original 84. I’d recommend the regular one over color display. If you’re buying for the future and have a bit of cash to spend, the TI-89 is really good, but you can’t use it on the SAT (not sure about APs).</p>
<p>Although (so far) calculators don’t become obsolete at the pace that computers or cell phones do, nevertheless I’m not sure that technology is an area where I would base my purchases today on what I think I might want or need in 5 years. YMMV.</p>
<p>But FWIW, I’ve taken a bunch if college-level math classes in which the TI-89 was not allowed.</p>
<p>I have a TI-84 Plus and I have found it very useful to date. I have never needed anything more and do not think I could have done many of my calculations with anything less. As ybrown said, the TI-89 is nice, because of the CAS feature but I have never needed to use CAS - I found it more instructive to do my calculations by hand. Also, the TI-84 has been more than enough for my college assignments. Calculators of any kind are not even allowed on my college math exams, so the TI-84 Plus was definitely optimal for me.</p>
<p>Also, the 84-Plus is allowed on the SAT, so that was definitely a help - especially during the Math II Subject Test.</p>
<p>Ti-89! It’s overkill for the SAT / APs and it’s allowed. Enjoy the fancy tricks of letting it shortcut your work so you’ll be finishing faster than all the others taking the test if you’re good at it.</p>
<p>
Uhh, the SAT does not test calculus, so there’s nothing that you can do with an 89 that you can’t do with another graphing calculator. It might be more helpful on the AP exam, but I find it to be easier to just do the calculations by hand. Also, keep in mind that if you want to take the ACT, the 89 is not allowed on the ACT. I see no point in spending $50 extra for the 89.</p>
<p>You can factor, expand things, manipulate expressions and solve equations (CAS is much faster than graphing the solution) in the blink of an eye on a Ti-89. It’s features certainly help when you can abuse it to brute force questions rather than actually solving them.
–It’s not really an extra $50 if you find it in a good place.
Not to mention… My Ti-89 came with a 200% return on investment through math competition money, there is no way I could pick off other Ti-89 users without one. :P</p>
<p>That doesn’t seem like a terribly valuable consideration, though, for a person who just wants to take math classes and doesn’t want to do math competitions. </p>
<p>I still assert that an 83 is sufficient, that there are many instances in which an 89 isn’t permitted, and that an 83 or 84 is the right choice for the OP’s circumstances.</p>
<p>I would get a TI 84 plus. My Algebra teacher told us not to get the TI 83 because they are on the way out.</p>
<p>For the modest difference in the retail prices, I’d choose an 84, too. But if money is tight and you find a good price on a close-our or second-hand TI-83, it’s not obsolete.</p>
<p>I have a ti-83+ and it’s working just fine.</p>
<p>A Ti 84 is excellent
But a question: How do you take AP Calc BC and pre calc at the same time?</p>
<p>84 or inspire</p>
<p>I have a TI-84. It is what our school has for upper math classes (Trig, Calc, Stats, maybe College Algebra and I think a few of us used them in Alg II) I used one throughout all of 9th and 10th grades, but we were TOLD we’d have to buy our own calculators junior year (WHICH WAS A LIE) so I got the same one I’d been using.</p>