So, for a budding math student ...

[Tugdual]

If math student means you want to use it for exams I would recommend to avoid it due to lack of maturity of the product. For fun, experimentation, discovery, rich features, very good hardware (except screen which has poor view angle and colors of the keyboard difficult to read) I would say, go for it. For me it became a geek toy but when I need serious CAS I go for maxima on PC and when I need a RPN calculator I go for a HP15C LE which is both convenient and fast.
I don't know TI products so I cannot compare and I'm an old HP fan. If you're interested in other brands, don't ignore Casio and Sharp.