Average Reviews:
(More customer reviews)Strengths:
The document management system -- multiple "problems" can be kept in the calculator at the same time, and each problem keeps its own variable names; good graphing capabilities; ability to split the screen and work with multiple views of the same problem; spreadsheet application. The calculator has 5 "applications" (calculator, graphs & geometry, spreadsheet, data & statistics, notes), and information can be shared between them.
Weaknesses:
The documentation is very poor. There are two user guides, with considerable overlap in the contents. In User Guide Part 1, which comes packaged with the calculator, there are 25 pages on the Graphs & Geometry application, and the information on how to actually plot a graph is barely mentioned. User Guide Part 2 comes as a PDF file, and has more detail, but is badly organized and missing a lot of information. For example, instructions for a number of operations say to "drag" something, but nowhere in the manual does it say how to do that.
Keypad: other reviewers have commented on the difficulty pressing the right buttons on the keypad. Even worse is the "mouse" operation. I finally discovered that dragging involves holding the center "Click button" while pressing the arrow keys on the "NavPad". It is very difficult to control the cursor with the NavPad, and doubly so when trying to hold down the click button. Also, what operation is done by a click or drag is dependent on where on the screen the cursor is, and it's difficult to control the cursor location with the level of precision needed.
TI-84 compatibility: This seemed like a great idea. However, as far as I can determine, there's no way to integrate TI-84 functions with TI-Nspire functions. When you put in the TI-84 keypad, you get a TI-84. With the TI-Nspire keypad, you get a TI-Nspire. If you want to transfer information from one to the other, it seems to be impossible. The only relevant information in the documentation about TI-84 mode is a warning that if you update the operating system, all your added TI-84 applications will be deleted.
Lack of software: The TI-84 has a lot of user-contributed software. There's almost nothing on the TI web site for the TI-Nspire. I also didn't find much with a web search, and some of what is available requires the CAS version. For example, there don't appear to be any built-in physical constants or conversion factors for units. I could switch to TI-84 mode and get them, but then what's the point of buying the TI-Nspire?
Summary:
This calculator does not appear to be well-engineered or well-supported by TI. I would recommend waiting to see whether they give it the support that it deserves.
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