TI-36X Pro: Best bang for your 20 bucks

[Lonewolf]

   

(05-31-2015 07:44 PM)Dave Britten Wrote:  Last week I needed a cheap calculator for doing regressions other than the basic four that the HP-48 is equipped with, so I grabbed a TI-36X Pro.

Calling this the TI-36X Pro is rather misleading, because it's not even in the same league as the 36X, which was a functional, yet completely unremarkable scientific. The Pro has been upgraded with a dot-matrix LCD, and functionality that actually makes it a closer contender to the TI-83 and 86.

The multi-tap keys are a cool idea to pack a lot of functions on the keyboard without a squadron of shift keys. For instance, there's a key labeled "sin sin^-1". Press it once to enter "sin". Press it again, and the function changes to "sin^1". Two further presses will get you "sinh" and "sinh^-1". Quite a few of the keys work this way, including trig, logs, powers, and probability.

Can I ask what exactly you meant by "...it's not even in the same league as the 36X, which was a functional, yet completely unremarkable scientific..."

Also, I don't know which small HP scientifics have power-off memory protection, but for me, the memory safeguard of the 36X Pro is an absolutely important software feature. I can't tell you how amazing it is to be working on a data table, or even working on vector problems, and the TI auto times-out after a few minutes of non use, but when you turn it back on, everything is like you left it. I never could understand why Casio has never implemented memory safeguard in their small scientifics.
/Silicon Valley Regards