So, for a budding math student ...

[Han]

(02-27-2014 07:42 PM)Tugdual Wrote:  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.

I would go as far as saying avoid any calculator, really, if your focus is to truly understand mathematics and to develop an appreciation for the aesthetics of mathematics.

Quote: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.

This is true for _all_ calculators, but there are some models which are not so "open." As some have pointed out, the nSpire series is very locked down when compared to the other TI models. HP has generally embraced their users when it came to tinkering with their calculators. The exception is when people purposely try to break something they deem essential. I don't know what will happen if someone tries to circumvent the exam mode on the HP Prime, but in the past, they removed the CAS feature in the HP39G in later revisions (HP39G+) of that series once someone figured out to enable it. (The HP39G was marketed as a machine without CAS when in reality it was essentially the same as the HP40G with a CAS, but with the feature disabled.)