Texas Instruments TI-89 Titanium Graphing Calculator
by Texas Instruments
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Digital Cameras Photo Reviews of Texas Instruments TI-89 Titanium Graphing Calculator
Customer Review: The Potential Was There but TI Didn't Deliver
Summary: 3 Stars
After having used the TI-89 Titanium for a couple of years, I have discarded it for the older HP48GX. I have found that I prefer the Reverse Polish input of method of the HP but the TI-89 has a number of other problems.
1) Yes, it is a very powerful machine. However, Texas Instruments did not see fit to provide an Equation Writer: attempting to input complex equations on the Command Line is a real PITA. Once you get the equation input, you will see it displayed in "Pretty Print" which means that it now looks like a written equation but you can't do that in the first place.
2) The TI-89 Ti is not programmed out of the box to handle vectors. The target market has to include a lot of engineering students that would like that feature. The HP48GX on the other hand, with a push of a button can give me the dot product, cross product, magnitude, etc, etc.
3) Without an Equation Writer, the syntax to get differentials, integrals, etc takes some getting used to.
4) The manual supplied with the calculator is terse to the point of being cryptic in showing how to input more advanced mathematical techniques. However, that seems to be an industry wide problem because of the costs of producing and printing paper manuals.
5) The contrast with the silver gray background and the blue and yellow lettering for the secondary and tertiary functions is poor. Additionally, the letters are very small and difficult to see in the first place.
6) The contrast of the screen sucks! If you're the wrong side of 40 and wearing bifocals, good luck in trying to read a dialog box. TI should have also provided a magnifying glass.
Over-all, this is a very powerful calculator and some of the problems can be corrected with add-on programs. But...my decade-old HP48GX has features that TI did not see fit to put on a more "modern" machine. The TI-89 Ti has the horsepower but it is not harnessed effectively.
Customer Review: Highly Powerful, Versatile Graphing Utility
Summary: 5 Stars
Before buying this TI-89 Titanium, I had been using a TI-86 (now discontinued) for about five or six years. I was hesitant to make the switch because I was so satisfied with my previous calculator, but was convinced of the 89's usefulness within the first week of using it.
The greatest improvement over the other lines of TI calculators (discluding the n-Spire series) is the Computer Algebra System (CAS). This comes in handy on a daily basis in my Physics and Calculus courses because it saves an unbelievable amount of time in grunt-work involving simplification of expressions and solving of equations. It is very easy to input equations manipulate variables with the way the menus are set up, and the system is quite fast and accurate.
Programming in the TI-89 is also streamlined as compared with the normal TI Calculator BASIC simply because of the added ability to pass arguments into programs and functions. Functions may also be defined in the homescreen and within the lines of a program.
As the built-in and downloadable features of this calculator are far too numerous for me to recount, I will say that they are all very easy to use, quick to learn, and useful in many different situations.
The only complaint I have about the calculator, in fact, has something to do with the CAS system and evaluating limits and such at infinity. Weird things can happen if you attempt to evaluate specific functions at infinity or differentiate or integrate specific equations. Because of this, you should verify that the calculator correctly evaluates or simplifies the type of equation or expression you enter. The errors in the system, however, are so few as to be considered negligible and will not be used on a daily basis anyway.
I highly recommend this calculator for anybody in any math or science class involving heavy usage of algebra or graphing. It is a very solid unit and can be used for many different purposes.
Customer Review: Excellent Calculator for Engineering
Summary: 5 Stars
At first I was a little apprehensive about upgrading from my TI84 Silver to the 89 Titanium. For somebody very accustomed to the 83/84 layout there's a few changes, for example some keys being on the other side, and some functions (trig for example) that are now accessible via the 2nd key instead of being primary buttons. On the other hand, it's been built to make working with multivariable systems significantly easier, and the higher-resolution screen makes viewing things a lot more precise.
The TI89 has a CAS (Computer Algebra System) built in, and although I haven't used it too much I've found its basic solving function to be quite the timesaver in my electrical engineering class, and I know it would have made chemistry easier in the past. There are so many things that this calculator can do it's almost at a ridiculous level.
That said, I would recommend this calculator for anybody taking advanced Calculus and higher-level math classes in college, or for anybody taking math-intensive science classes (AP Chem could have used some of this calculator's features), or for anybody planning on getting an engineering degree.
For any math before college calculus (including AP Calc), this calculator is not at all necessary, and in fact you would be better off with an 84. If you might be using data probes in conjunction with your calculator (chemistry, physics) then you might want to consider the 84 Silver edition, which can process the data a little faster.
As somebody who has used 83's and 84's for years, I can honestly say that switching over hasn't been bad. After only a few days of intermittent use I already knew where most things were.
It's a very solid calculator, with more features than most people need. Then again, I don't use half the features on my cell phone, either. Definitely a good calculator to consider if you're thinking of an upgrade or replacement.
Customer Review: Best graphing calculator on the market
Summary: 5 Stars
This is the culmination of the Texas Instruments's upper price range TI-92+, Voyage 200, TI-89 line. Although the N-Spire CAS is more powerful (>150 times the clock speed), more flexible, and more expensive, it has so far been rejected by TI's customers for its poor design and lack of programmability, which has been the TI calculators' greatest claim to superiority since TI's first graphing calculator was introduced in 1990. Until the N-Spire series matures, consider the TI-89 graphing calculator the most powerful calculator that Texas Instruments sells.
This calculator is not suitable for middle-school or high-school levels. The TI-84+ is much cheaper than the TI-89 and has everything those students will need. Although younger students certainly could appreciate the additional power of the TI-89, you're wasting your money if they're not going to take college level math or engineering classes.
The most remarkable difference beteween the TI-89 and the less expensive TI-83/83 Plus/84 Plus line is its ability to operate symbolically. Almost any function or operation can be run in terms of a general variable just as well as it can on an actual number, which is extremely useful in matrix manipulation. This is in contrast to the TI-84 Plus's ability to just substitute numerical values for variables. Also, on the TI-89 you can create your own functions in the BASIC editor, which allows you to use BASIC to compute values for graphing or anything else. And of course the 89 has the many more preprogrammed functions and little useful features that you would expect from a more expensive product.
It's definitely possible to get through college with an 84+, using it for computation while you do symbolic manipulation in your head, but the 89 will make your life easier and you'll appreciate its power; I miss all sorts of functions when I have to use an 83/84 and don't regret getting my 89.
Customer Review: Amazing calculator, can do anything
Summary: 5 Stars
This calculator really can do anything, its like a magic wand on any exam. Let me first start off by saying, check to see that your teachers allow you to use this. I of course purchased this back in my senior year of HighSchool where I was allowed to use it, then silly me. I expected that going to Clemson University as an engineer, I would be allowed to use it... I was wrong (at least for the first year you aren't) However I switched to Corporate Finance and I have yet to be able to use the TI-89 on an exam, I've been forced to settle for the TI-83. As with all TI calculators, the TI-89 seems indestructible, you can drop this thing multiple times and it won't break, its quite amazing just how good a job TI did making this thing strong. The features are countless, you can solve equations right on the main screen, do derivations, integrals, etc... My favorite part of the calculator is the Home Screen though, it has Applications listed out in icon form, which wouldn't work on a TI-83, but luckily the TI-89 has what seems to be 3 or 4 times the number of pixels that the TI-83 has (you can view a Black and white picture on the TI-89 and you'd actually be able to tell what it was). The learning curve for the TI-89 is steep, I don't think in all my years of new technology I have ever had a device that took more time learning how to use all the functions. Part of the reason the TI-89 is not allowed on most exams is that it has a notepad, that you can actually connect the calculator to your computer and write out a note sheet viewable on your calculator (or you could do it on the calculator but it takes much longer).
All in all, I love this TI-89, it knows no boundaries, and I really wish I were allowed to use this on a daily basis, because its quite remarkably all the things it can do. I've owned this for 4 years or so and its still going strong, its a great quality product!