Texas Instruments Voyage 200 Calculator by Texas Instruments
|
List Price: Our Price: $179.99 You Save: $99.01 (35%) Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days Buy Used: from $130.00 (click here) Category: CE See more digital camera details and other models |
|---|
Digital camera reviews of Texas Instruments Voyage 200 Calculator
Digital camera Review: Buy it, if you wanna have a BETA version
Summary: 1 Stars
System hangs a lot of times...Afterwards it restarts and all your data is gone...
And uses a very large amount of power... Means you have to buy lots of batteries...
You better chose TI-92plus...
Digital camera Review: Do you really need QWERTY?
Summary: 4 Stars
I've had the pleasure of using a TI-89 for a couple of years now, and from what I understand, if all you need is something to do your math courses for you, the Voyage 200 just doesn't deliver enough extra functionality to be worth the extra expense. The operating system (yes, including the icon desktop and the advanced math features) on the Voyage 200 is the exact same as the OS available for the TI-89 via free download from TI's website. I think you're just paying for the bigger screen and keyboard. It's just too bulky.As for HP, well they've re-entered the calculator business; the HP 49G+ will be available by the end of September, based on a processor more than 4 times faster than the original HP 49G. Add to that a standard USB interface (Just like the one you use to plug in your digital camera) and a built-in SD card slot, it'll be hard to beat for memory upgradability. And I hear they'll be re-introducing the equation library. For those of you who don't know, the equation library brought together a bunch of formulas from economics, physics, engineering, etc. and made them available through a menu system -- instant crib notes! Can't wait to see a final production model.
Digital camera Review: Does what it says.
Summary: 3 Stars
This calculator does everthing required for class. Some of the extra's are not useful.
Graphing is no faster on this then with my TI-85.
Overall it is probably overkill for anyone who needs just a calculator. But it does the job fine.
Digital camera Review: Easy to use than HP48GX and HP49.
Summary: 4 Stars
I owned HP28s, HP48GX. I worked for both companies who made TI voyage 200 and HP48GX (not calc departments). TI Voyage 200 is much easy to learn the HP calc. One can learn everything in few days but HP is much harder to learn (everything in a month!) HP may be much more powerful and accurate that is why HP is much more to learn (and much more slower). But who cares the power if the calc is so slow and so hard to learn and USE. I bought HP 48GX with 1M card when I was in engineering school. The calc was seldom used. It is not easy to learn and USE. To do some calculations, one may have to go through menu after menu. It is just a pain to use HP. Unless you have a lot of time, it can be treated as a MATH toy to do some interesting math which has no values in the real world most of time.
After one goes to work force, most problems are solved numerical by 'simulator',e.g. circuit simulator. Those equations are so complex that one cannot easily put into the calc or not even can be solved by calc (unless you want to wait forever for the answers). Most equations are much simplied versions of the real world, e.g. curcuit equations, semiconductor equations. So you may not really need a super precise calc. (As long as it is reasonable percise, it is ok.)
My point is to find a calc as a calc, not a calc can do everything (try to do almost everything!). That is not practical. TI Voyage 200 is good enough to do most tasks. If you need more powerful tools, you get a maple, mathlab, spice, Verilog sim etc (They are much easy to use and can program easily than HP!). You don't waste time to try on those complicated calc e.g. HP (It is just slow to calculate even 1+1 compared to my Casio). I try to make myself like HP. However the speed and not user friendly interface just made me to hate it.
I am glad HP discontinues the HP48 and HP49.
Voyage 200 is not prefect. It is just a calc. You need to use the Right Tool to do right things. Don't try to enter 30x30 matrix. You find a better tool to do it,e.g. Matlab. Who will really wants to do 30x30 matrix on a calc (just enter the matrix on the calc espeically in HP is a pain). Look at the results 30x30 matrix is very pain too (Scroll left and right!). Maybe only those HP users who are very proud to do it (much faster) on the HP calc. (It is just a math toy with very little real values in the real world).
MY HP48 will stay in my drawer for very long time.
My complain of this calc is not as many talented programmers as HP to write software for this calc. Also, this calc is probably not as powerful as HP. But it is fast and easy to use. That is what I care more. I can always use computer for more complex calculation.
Digital camera Review: Extremely fine new form factor for the TI-89 and TI-92 calculators
Summary: 5 Stars
I have owned top of the line graphing and scientific calculators from TI, HP, Casio, Sharp, etc. Back when I was a student, TI's were very cheaply made and often broke quite easily. This machine, the TI Voyage 200, is definitely not cheaply made and is definitely put together very well. It is also a good improvement over its predecessors with a different form factor, the TI-89 (and even an inprovement over the TI92) with more memory and with an improved keyboard and improved keyboard "feel" and a much better feature set, etc. The pros and cons as I see it are:
PROS:
1) It has all the standard regular and CAS (Computer Algebra System) features that we have come to expect on such a machine, plus many nice very detailed and topic as well as course specific APPS that are already preloaded and these can also be added in electronically and quite simply from the TI website. The interface with a computer is fast and easy to set up. For a good manual instead of the skimpy documentation provided by TI, just use the TI-89 manual and you will be just fine on its overall capabilities and operations.
2) It has a very nice calendar and note storage system for keeping track of coursework and daily workload assignments.
3) It is quite fast with a nice graphical interface and resultant plotting system. The resultant plots are high quality and with the many added features available for enhancement, these are very intuitive for the learning process.
4) The icon system for choosing where you want to be on the machine can also be converted to a much easier and quicker to navigate text-list system.
5) It has a nice and quite modern, large slate-like body design that is quite large and that sits very nicely both on a desk or a table as well in your hands.
6) It has a large amount of onboard main memory, plus additional Flash memory for tackling quite memory intensive problems.
7) This TI Voyage 200 machine is to the TI-89 Titanium as the Casio FX-9860g Slim is to the Casio FX-9860g. The much improved form factor on both these former machines is great for computational and viewing purposes, but the TI machine is much much larger and less portable overall than the Casio which is extremely portable and pocketable.
CONS:
1) There is no SD card slot as on the HP50g.
2) Integrals are completed by a table look-up process and not by direct manipulation so very little insight can be found by students as to why the result appears the way it does. On the HP50g, in step by step mode, much additional insight can be gained by the manner in which the integrals are performed for example.
3) The algebraic operating system is the only choice available on this machine which usually requires many more keystrokes to do a complicated problem.
4) The available programming languages are quite limited on this machine as compared again to the HP50g.
5) Some functions that you would readily expect to be available with a single key press require instead at least two key presses, but usually with only a single shift key press first.
6) The color coding choices are not as distinctive and easy to quickly recognize, but much better than on the TI-89 Titanium.
7) As with the HP50g, it require multiple batteries plus a backup coin cell battery to save everything briefly when changing the main batteries.
8) TI should also impliment a fine backlight system for viewing the very large TI Voyage 200 screen at low ambient light levels, as recently included on the Casio FX-9860g Slim version for example.