I recently wanted to get a new graphing calc to program on because my TI-83+ has too little memory for me.

So I decided to make a poll asking everyone.

Nspires: Really shiny but locked down when looking at programming.
Prime: Powerful, but unproven.
83+SE: Not worth it, get 84+SE
84+SE/84+: The gold standard. Almost everything is designed for it.
84+CSE: Color screen, slower, but getting better in terms of available programs.
V200: Giant screen, CAS, and powerful processor. Not too many programs available, though. The available ones are really amazing. A better buy would be an 89 Titanium for its smaller size.

I searched up a voyage 200 and a HP prime. HP prime is cheaper by about 50$...

Depending on how much my budget will be, I might get the Voyage 200

If its for 83+SE, then its for 83+,83+SE,84+,84+SE.
I prefer my 84+SE for everything.

It's about $30, 84+SE is about $55, and the 83+SE is smaller and does everything the 84 does but USB.

Let me question your premise first: too little memory for what exactly? I suspect you might actually be just fine with a TI-83+.

The TI-83+SE is my all-time favorite calculator: all the speed and memory of the TI-84+SE, plus tons of space in the case for extra hardware mods. I second this.

Here's my rundown:

HP Prime: Does everything, and then some. Still buggy and not very widely used
83+ SE: The old standby. Lacks CAS though.
84+ CSE: A calculator with a lot of potential, but some bad hardware choices and some inefficiencies in the OS. Assembly programmers can still make awesome stuff with it, though.
84+ SE: See 83+ SE, with USB support.
Voyage 200: The former world's best calculator, if you aren't taking standardized exams, for it has a QWERTY keyboard. Not much developing anymore, but still has CAS and is awesome.
Nspire CX: (I'm assuming non-CAS) Basically an HP Prime with a bit more stability and a larger programmer base. Lacks CAS and a touchscreen comparatively, though.

I voted for the Prime, btw, but there are some pros and cons of each.

However let's not forget their tendency to discolor and an unusually high occurrence of ribbon cable failure (which is a bonus if you know how to fix ribbon cables). But overall it's a good investment if you get them cheap.

The Voyage 200 is a great calc, but there isn't much of a community for it, nor is it approved on any standardized testing.

Actually more memory than most or at least many 84+SEs!

And they're ridiculously cheap: here is one on eBay, Buy It Now, in beautiful condition, for $35: http://www.ebay.com/itm/231244060760

I have a ton of projects

That doesn't really answer my question. I know you program TI-BASIC (although I've never seen anything you've written actually posted to the forum for help or feedback), and 160KB of TI-BASIC is a huge amount of programming. Even if you have Doors CS 7 taking up 48KB of space, you'd have a hard time filling up 112KB of Archive with TI-BASIC programs that you're actively working on. I continue to question your premise of wanting a new calculator solely because you've run out of room.

Edit: By the way, the defining calculator buying guide that I show to everyone is always our annual Back-to-School guide:
http://www.cemetech.net/news.php?id=620

And both the 84+ and the 83+ have the same amount of ram...
So out of those two the only reason you would buy the 84+ is due to the >2x higher raw clock frequency.

Here is a page comparing the ti calculators: http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_Texas_Instruments_graphing_calculators

And one for hp calculators:
http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_HP_graphing_calculators
With the HP prime having a 400 mhz arm processor, 32 mb of ram, and 256 mb of flash memory, 320x240 3.5 in. multi-touch display, programming in "basic" (hpppl), and microusb linking. (because that information wasn't included)

Do not fear, these Wikipedia pages are not tainted with falsehoods.

Thanks all.

It's sort of the archive. I have trouble fitting Axe, Doors, Calcsys , BBC BASIC, and other utilities in my calc, and it has random RAM clears a lot.

I searched up the HP prime on HP.

This as well, correct?

Yes. I also want a calc that doesn't have the RAM clear problem.

Another source for comparing calculators is http://tiplanet.org/forum/compare.php .

In order to promote the locked-down Nspire, TI made the 89T and V200 horribly expensive. The proper price tag for the TI-68k series would be between the price tag for the TI-Z80 series and that for the Nspire series (and all three series should be at least 3x cheaper, but that's another matter).


The TI-Z80 and TI-68k series lose unarchived files upon reboot, as you know. The locked-down Nspire, and the buggy and rare Prime (even with the latest firmware update, large PPL programs still fail miserably at random), store their files into Flash memory.
But on-calc programmability of the Nspire is (intentionally) poor, to say the least.

If you use KOS, Ram clears will be less of an issue, but that is still in development right now...

Why is there no Casio Prizm available?

I didn't think of Casio Prizm at the time.

In case you're leaning towards the Prime: depending on your usage, you may want to wait for the next hardware revision before buying one, and double-check whether the calculator you want to buy is of the newer hardware revision.

A thread on MoHPC indicates that hardware revision A calculators, i.e. all calculators currently on the market (that's what Tim Wessman wrote), are unable to do the features which were announced a while ago: wireless, unit-to-unit transfers and DataStreamer.
DataStreamer is not a real concern for individual users, but unit-to-unit transfer, and wireless to a lesser extent (the cradle was announced as far less expensive than the Nspire's cradle), could matter if you're not the only Prime user in your area.

The Voyage 200 is by far the most powerful OPEN TI calculators on that list, however, a Ti 89 Titanium is more desirable because of more programs available, slightly more space, and better support.

The Ti 84+ SE, hands down, is the best calculator for all-around work, programming, and playing. While Zilog Z80 Assembly is somewhat tedious to learn, several languages, Grammer, Axe, and BBCBasic, have been created/ported to this platform to make assembly programming much easier.

If I were you, I'd get a Ti 84+ SE and a Ti 89 Titanium for the best of both worlds.