TI serves up an A+ Calculater

I've always felt that TI has a monopoly on the calculater industry. I mean every school recommends a TI 83 plus and that seems kind of fishy to me. But I have to give credit, the TI calcs do a pretty good job and they probably are the best around given that the competition is really only Casio and they aren't great at all.

The TI 83 Plus SE unleashes the potential that the 83 plus had. Not only does it have a faster CPU (about 2.5x faster) but also more memory (1.5MB total archive) than the regular TI 83 Plus. Now this isn't really a lot on paper but its a calculater for christ's sake, we don't need more then a MB or two. Obvioulsy it also has all the neccesary functions for anyone in need of a graphing calculater. Wheather your in high school, college, or even middle school you can't really go wrong with a TI 83 plus unless you need something more advanced like a 92 or 89. All the basic funtions you need are included (ie. multiplication, add, subtract, etc.). And the advanced things are all there to, by which I mean sine and cosine things (trigonometry), square roots and such, a host of options and modes (like scientific notation), and the neccesary Order of Operations in the calculater. Not to mention all the other stuff, a lot of which you probably won't use. Its a little complicated at first with all your given but you quickly pick up and understand what you need to press to find out anwser X and such. It also gets easier if you have a helpful teacher. I don't really want to go into to much detail because it can't get to exciting, but trust me, it will provide all the neccesities for your classes for the most part.

The graphing functions are also aplenty with plots and line and bar graphs or even your own drawings. Ease of use is another thing TI does extrodinarily here by making tasks that would seem difficult be done with little effort and finding certain specifics, like y intercept, easy.

A host of applications is given to you as well, such as a periodic table, organizer, cellsheet, areaformula, probability simulaters, and more. The Silver Edition does include more preloaded apps, few of which I mentioned, that would normally cost money from TI if you were to get it for a regular 83 plus. Most of which are self explanitory and using science tools to find significant figures makes classes easier. New apps can be downloaded and installed but I can't really recommend to much since my bet is most people don't use their calculater as a serious device (ie organizer, notes, etc.). But the apps are a nice addition on the basic functions for algebra and geometry or whatever class you may use this for. Theres also all sorts of programs you can come up with so you don't have to input the same thing over and over again. A google search should give you all the info you need about TI BASIC programming and in no time you'll have programs that can do funtions for you. Of course you could just download them on your PC on homebrew sites and transfer them. And don't forget about the games! I'm suprised at how big the homebrew of the TI 83 series is because there are many games that range from tetris and mario to bowling and 'Who wants to be a millionaire?'. Theres all sorts of text based games and flash games to play. But don't play games in class ;)

However, there are some downfalls of this wonderful calc. The transfer rate is extremely slow, I mean all files are only a few kilobytes (kbs) and it can take 1-2 minutes to transfer these. The terrible included software that you must use to transfer anything is also not helpful and I've even gotten a few BSODs (Blue Screens of Death) from the software. The sliding protector case slides off way to easily, but the calculater is durable anyway and survives a ton of drops.

Now I should mention I do not currently have my TI-83 Plus SE. This is because it, well, broke. I'm not sure what happened but after 3 or 4 years of working perfectly fine my calculater broke. I was going nuts at first, thinking that TI would just treat their customer service like crap like other companies, but I have to say that this is probably the best service I've experienced. I mean I've gotten screwed plenty of times and on more expensive things but TI put a lot of effort into these cheaper products. I emailed them on a friday and by monday or tuesday they replied giving me detailed instructions on how to fix it and if that wouldn't work they offered to replace it, for FREE. Of course I'd half to pay shipping and handling though. Currently I don't have my calculater because of this, they gave me all the info I needed and I sent out my calculater a few days ago. They claim it will take 3-4 weeks or sooner but I think thats pretty good for a free replacement on a 3-4 year old device. They also mentioned that it was up to them on what they would replace it with if they couldn't repair it, but I recieved the same version that I sent in, not mine but a new or referbished one. Anyway, so far their customer service is top notch and very pleasent. Unfortunetly for me school started and I needed a calculater so I had to buy an 84 Plus SE (last one they had).

The main differences you need to know is that the Silver edition includes a disc and USB cable to transfer things (slowly) to and from your PC and that the Silver Edition looks different with better and more raw power and more preloaded applications. Of course the SE has been discontinued (my guess is you can still find it though but I can't really say for sure) in 2004 but it still is a good calculater and not much different from the 84 series. The manual is also located on the disc.

As I mentioned before, I had to buy a TI-84 Plus SE so that review should be up some time after I've had more experience with it, although theres not much differences.