DO NOT buy the 89 if you're thinking about SATs. The 89 is so good that you're not allowed to use it during the SATs. The 89 is also not allowed for the Calculus AP exam. You'll want a lesser calculator for those tests. In my school, only the teachers are allowed to use the 89s.
Aven
1) First, anyone who wants HP, that's fine by me. I won't try to argue the benefits of one over the other. But, as a high school math teacher, I know that my school and most other schools I'm aware of use the 83+/84+ family for basic algebra. Some schools then step up to the 89 for Calc and Stat. Others don't.
2) Refer to the
following page for comparisons, including which is allowed on what test.
3) Note that this "deal" is for the old TI-89, not the current TI-89 Titanium.
4) CAS refers to Computer Algebra System. The most noticeable thing that it means is that when you do a calculation, rather than showing you a decimal approximation out to the ten billionth decimal place, it shows an exact answer using radicals and pi and e.
5) imho if you're relying on the calculator for the SAT, you're wasting too much time on calculations, and are likely to run out of time on the test. Instead of buying a fancy calculator, get a basic test prep book and learn the tricks to finding the answers to the questions.
6) The 83/84 run on a Z80 chip. Basically a pre-PC processor, copied from the Intel 8080. The 89 Titanium runs on a Motorola 68k. Basically the same processor that ran the classic Macintosh.
7) For next week (Jul 15-21) Staples will have the TI-84+ on sale for $85. That seems like a better deal to my feeble brain.
