Scientific Calculator 9

[rothers]

Anyone know a good quality modern scientific calculator ?

My brilliant Sharp El-5103 has finally given up after 45 years of use, faulty display,

Bought a EL-501T which seemed to be the modern equivalent but it's rubbish. Light flimsy plastic case, secondary functions orange text on brown background which I find hard to read.

So what's your current favourite modern pocket calculator for engineering / scientific use ?

 

[ctopher]

Mine gave up too several years ago.
I now use iPhone calculator.

Chris, CSWP
SolidWorks
ctophers home

 

[JohnRBaker]

The calculator app on my iPhone does a pretty good job as a scientific calculator, at least for what I need:

John R. Baker, P.E. (ret)
Irvine, CA
Siemens PLM:

The secret of life is not finding someone to live with
It's finding someone you can't live without

 

[TugboatEng]

Check out the Texas Instruments TI-30 series. Schools often require their use and without needing to be competitive, TI can keep their prices high without making changes to the design.

 

[JStephen]

TI-30Xa here.
Not that it's the greatest, but adequate.
On the button quality- the issue is, back when a calculator cost $500, you got $5 buttons. Now that they cost $10, you get 10-cent buttons.
Long ago, I used a TI-59, and miss some aspects of it, but use Excel spreadsheets for most of those applications now.
There are very capable calculators still available, but the learning curve to switch to something new and relatively cryptic tends to make the more advanced features undesirable for me.

 

[JohnRBaker]

Note that the last handheld scientific calculator I had was a Texas Instruments, something like a TI-83 or TI-84, however, it's long gone.

But I still have my Pickett N-500-ES slide rule.

July 2017 (Sony a6000, 16-50mm)

Never needs batteries and the 'display' is as sharp as it ever was ;-)

John R. Baker, P.E. (ret)
Irvine, CA
Siemens PLM:

The secret of life is not finding someone to live with
It's finding someone you can't live without

 

[ctopher]

The past 10 years I have had more problems reading slide rules, even with glasses. Too many years staring at computers.

Chris, CSWP
SolidWorks
ctophers home

 

[BrianE22]

Another vote for the TI30Xa. My eyes are too bad and my fingers too clumsy to use a phone.

 

[DanStro]

I am going to intrepret 'modern' to mean more modern than the one that you are replacing. I would be lost using anything other than my HP-48GX.

 

[Stick.]

I'm partial to my TI-83 plus, but mostly because I already own it, and know how to use it since I used it all the way through university. It's a bit big for a pocket calculator, but still fits in the back pockets of my jeans. If it died and I lost all the muscle memory I have, I don't know if I'd buy one again, but I would look for something that can display more than 2 lines of calculations, preferably 6+. Then again, they don't seem too expensive on ebay, so I might buy one again.

All of the above assumes that you've already ruled out using an app on your phone, since that's way more convenient to carry around.

 

[EdStainless]

Too bad you aren't an RPN guy, SwissMicro makes some very nice calculators.

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P.E. Metallurgy, consulting work welcomed

 

[dik]

I use the Mathlab app... I think it cost $6. for my phone calculator. For day to day I use my TI Nspire CX2 CAS. It's a little much for someone that is looking for just a calculator. A screen shot of the MathLab app:

-----*****-----
So strange to see the singularity approaching while the entire planet is rapidly turning into a hellscape. -John Coates

-Dik

 

[GregLocock]

I like my TI 80, which is now 30 years old. But for some reason I bought a secondhand Titanium, and have completely failed to get into it, partly because I always have a computer handy.

Cheers

Greg Locock


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[TugboatEng]

I can't remember if I got a 4 or a 5 on my AP calculus exam thanks to my TI-89. If I got a 4 it's probably because I spent too much of the year playing Drug Wars, thanks to my TI-89.

 

[IRstuff]

and the 'display' is as sharp as it ever was

Mine is pretty blurry nowadays, although the sharpness seems to get better when I wear reading glasses

TTFN (ta ta for now)
I can do absolutely anything. I'm an expert!

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[ChorasDen]

I'll put in a vote for the wolfram alpha app on the smartphone. Think I got it for 1 dollar and it does everything from graphing, mathematic functions, and even complex calculation including double integrations and such. Works pretty great, but may be more than you need. If you are looking for a discrete unit, I'm partial to the TI-36x.

 

[electricpete]

Another vote for the hp48gx and associated android apps

I wrote a lot about an android app Droid48 here: thread724-313111

I think that app is no longer maintained but there is a newer better app: emu48

 

[CWB1]

I perpetually have a spreadsheet open so default to using Excel.

 

[JohnRBaker]

I agree, if I needed to do something complex where I needed either a record or was likely to have to do something similar in the future, I would opt for an Excel spreadsheet. If all I needed was the final number, then my iPhone app would probably suffice.

John R. Baker, P.E. (ret)
Irvine, CA
Siemens PLM:

The secret of life is not finding someone to live with
It's finding someone you can't live without

 

[electricpete]

> or was likely to have to do something similar in the future, I would opt for an Excel spreadsheet. If

The HP48GX (like a lot of the others I suspect) can save everything for you. Variables of any type (numeric, string, array etc) as well as equations (just a special string) and programs can be stored as named objects saved in a hierarchical folder structure. Typically a directory houses everything to work on a specific type of problem/project. Looking from outside the app, the entire directory structure is stored in a single datafile which can be backed up and transferred among phones. I still have project directories written more than a decade ago back around the time when I wrote that thread.

BUT now I have to back waaay up and admit you and CWB1 are right in that there's very little sense to go through all that today. Something like google sheets (I'm sure there are others) allows us to develop a problem solution method on the desktop and use that same solution on the phone. And all your projects don't have to be lumped into one file, they can be individual files (spreadsheets) by project. There are still a handful of things I do on my hp48x emulator today based upon my old projects and upon the few things that are easier to do on that calculator out of the box, but.... as much as it pains me to admit it... I'd have a hard time arguing that it's worth the learning curve for someone starting fresh.