Well, considering *no one* really has a OS 2.0 or less Nspire these days as many upgraded at teacher's request or bought new Nspires or CXes, The memory doesn't apply to GBC ROMS at all. Plus, the prizm has a very comparable amount of memory compared to Ndless-compatible Nspires, and while the CX *DOES* have a lot fo memory for GBC ROMS, what's the point of carrying around like 1000 if you have no emulator? (The CX, remember, has no ndless right now and a very small chance of getting it, and Lua is *way* too slow for making that kind of an emulator.)

Even with Lua support, TI will stamp out everything that aids game or developer utility production, they want Lua purely for Math and Science programming. While Casio has been chill and literally is unbiased towards 3rd party programming (they don't hate it for sure, as noticed in many letters, but at this moment their sights are more on marketing it and getting it popularity and improving it -- so they won't help us with an SDK (yet), but they definately will not close up development at all)



On a side note, I was happy two days ago because at my local Office Depot, there were *tons* of Prizm ads in the calculator "aisle", but only like one CX ad and they weren't even selling it casio must finally be trying to get this more mainstream. In fact, they even were advertising the "skin-it" deal with flyers next to the "aisle".

I agree with Kerm whole heartedly. The Nspire has little place for high schoolers at all at this point in time. The text books are designed for the 83+ line of calculators, and it will be quite some time before any of the book publishers are going to worry about editing the content to deal with the Nspire, when the 84+ is still for sale.

Also, distinct lack of Tokens love in the first post :<

It's all well and good, but what about people who have an TI-86 (like me)? There's nothing about it in this topic.

That's a very well written article, Kerm. I agree with Kerm on this issue. The Prizm will eventually become more useful for math than the Nspire with its ability to run C and ASM programs. The Nspire, however, can't run ASM programs without Ndless, which has to keep getting updated for every new OS version. Also, it wouldn't be very hard to port an existing CAS to the Prizm.

You sound like a TI marketing flyer for the Nspire. And you're wrong.

Storage: just drop Document DE on your 83+/84+. I doubt teachers want you to have "lots of information" saved anyway.

Graphing: 1.5 seconds versus 0.5 seconds? Give me a break.

Games: You're forced to do the equivalent of jailbreaking, voiding your warranty. Lua is slow and underpowered, although it's a step in the right direction.

Wrong. TI no longer sells the keypad with any calculator; you have to specifically send away for it, and my sources indicate that that won't be the case for long.

No. Just Lua and the crippled "BASIC".

In the US, the Nspire non-CX is down to $40, because no one wants one. The TI-83+ is around $90, and the TI-84+SE is around $120, because people actually want them. The full-color Prizm is also about $120.

That's great! I'm happy to hear it.

Advice: Avoid using the word "never".

Also,

I am not recommending the CX. I never said the CX was good, I don't think it is. I'm recommending the Touchpad with 84+ Keypad.

It still exists, at least in my country, for 139€. It's the best calculator buy one can make. It's good for school, it features a 84+, it's great.



I wish the difference was that small. Drawing quadratic or even cubic functions on the 84+ takes forever.

On the Nspire you can even use the touchpad to select different graphs, making their angles wider or smaller and see how the analytic function changes. It helped me a lot understanding functions.



Most high school students where I live don't know how to send 8XP's to their 84+'s and they care about default programs. Document DE is, though, very good, but still it can't have functions in it, nor tables, nor tabs (can it have tabs?).



Teachers don't, but I save a lot of information on my calculator for tests, which I type on the Student Software for the Nspire.



Lua is good indeed, a bit slow. That's a disadvantage, but hey, that's what the 84+ Keypad is for.



As I said, I'm not talking about the CX...



I sound like a student who is thankful for having a Nspire for school, which allows him to get good grades more easily. And I'm right.[/b]

Well, I'm glad you like your Nspire, seriously. What helps you is good, and you should continue using it.

However, the calculator you mention has no future whatsoever. Newer students should not get that, or the CX.

And souvik, I was thinking of a custom CAS myself, but I didn't say it out loud though I agree it has great potential to acquire it in the future *puts finger on nose* -- nosegame to who gets to make it

The CX no of course. It lacks stuff, such as ASM and C, and 84+ Emulation.

But if students can get the Nspire Touchpad with 84+ Keypad, they should.

I suggest you edit the post that we're all reacting to ( http://www.cemetech.net/forum/viewtopic.php?p=160737#160737 ), to make it clear that 1) you're talking about the older Nspire models (whose production by TI has probably stopped), not the newest ones, and that 2) you're talking for the situation in your country

Not that we'd agree on the Nspire being the best tool at the time of this writing - but at least, your post would be more balanced.

I'm not going to base my opinion on a calculator on the fact that it can be bough or not.

What might change is what I recommend to students who are going to buy a calculator for this year.

However, I can still buy the Nspire with 84+ Keypad around here, so I'll keep on recommend it to all local students, unless if they need 3D Graphing, in that case I'll recommend the 89.

Definitely, but notice that this article isn't about "tell us what calculator you like most"; instead, it's "what calculator should (the hypothetical) you buy?". The older Nspires are mostly unavailable, the 84+ keypad is hard to come by, and the new Nspires are terrible. Hence the TI-84+SE, TI-89, or Casio Prizm recommendation. Adamac: the TI-86 is a very solid calculator, but since it's no longer in production, it's almost impossible to find.

Then, if you can get a Nspire Touchpad with 84+ Keypad, that's what I recommend. If you can't do it, then I really don't know.

I never tried the PRIZM nor the 89. Between the PRIZM, the 89 and the 84 I'd buy the PRIZM, because I already have another calculator, but for people who are buying their first calculator, I don't really know, it's hard to decide.

'Tis indeed very hard to decide, but I think my decade of experience with the calculators, plus listening to all of you debate the pros and cons of each calculator over the years, has given me enough knowledge to at least make recommendations of what I think are good choices. Hence this news article.

I just shared this with my brother, who just got a (2.55MP loaded) TI-84+SE for his birthday. Hopefully he'll be signing up for Cemetech.

I like my Nspire very much. I don't really think that calculators should be color in the first place, so the CX and the Prizm aren't for me.
Ashbad, my Nspire still runs OS 2.1, because I want Ndless. Ndless is the only reason I haven't upgraded.

wrong, the 84 keypad is buggy (especially since latest OSs come with *shudder* mathprint) and mine is actually broken from switching between the nspire and TI-84+

And therein lies the rub. Joe Q. Student can just plug in his Prizm and drag some C add-ins / programs over. Mary A. Student can use TiLP or TI-Connect to load Doors CS and ASM games and BASIC math programs with input and getkey and everything, regardless of OS version or any existing cracks and hacks. The Nspire offers no such freedom to its users.

Qazz: And you're not the only one; I've heard a lot of reports of keypad shoddiness.

Elfprince: Very happy to hear it; hope he stops by!

hint: this isn't specifically for you or ephan, or even really just for programmers in general, but for students.

Indeed, mostly for students who might or might not eventually turn into programmers; for that sort of demographic, I'd feel that I was being misleading if I were to recommend the Nspire, as I myself wouldn't use one for math or programming.

For math, I would still use the 83+/84+ series or the 89 because the Nspire interface is really confusing to me.