At first I wanted to make fun of him, but he told be that he always has his Sharp calculator in his pocket for work and such since he can’t stand the one on his BlackBerry Curve. It is true the calculator on the Curve kinda sucks, though the iPhone’s isn’t enough to make me switch. Granted I don’t use the calculator for much—not, apparently, nearly as much as this guy.
The Wall Street Journal is all over a different type of calculator dilemma, how TI’s newest $US135 graphing TI-Nspire is overkill for some and many students prefer older graphing models or just iPhone apps. Are you with this guy? Can nothing replace the old-school calculator? Or do you think he’s just a holdout, and calculators are destined to melt away entirely into mobile phone firmware, end of story?
miles
Thursday, September 10, 2009 at 10:00 AM@b0bcat: abso-fkn-lutely
if you have never used one of these you will not understand…and if you try to..you will not understand 8/
Paultron
Thursday, September 10, 2009 at 10:43 AMthere is one thing most PC, phone, and cheap pocket calculators dont do that stops me using them.
Order of Operation!
Not sure if the iPhone/Pre/BlackBerry does it, but heres an easy way to tell.
1+2×3=
Correct = 7
Incorrect = 9
Makes doing longer calcs a LOT easier if you dont have to break them down and can punch them into a long string.
Jonathan Lin
Thursday, September 10, 2009 at 1:22 PMJust so you know
1+2×3=7 on an iphone 3gs
Ehren
Thursday, September 10, 2009 at 6:41 PMAin’t nothing gonna take away my casio fx 82-ms. I got it in year 8, and always whip it out to attack a calculation. My phone one just doesn’t cut it.
Andrew Maynard
Monday, September 14, 2009 at 3:25 AMHorses for courses I guess – I would always go for simple and effective over complex and confusing. I’ve never used a graphing calculator, and probably never will – in fact I think they are probably not as useful as many people seem to think they are (here’s my tongue in cheek take on them: http://2020science.org/2009/09/13/texas-instruments-transforming-the-world-one-graphing-calculator-at-a-time/ )