As announced by TI-BANK, Datamath has posted pictures of the real TI-Nspire CX calculator models, although per TI's request, they were asked to not show the inside of the calculator yet.

http://www.datamath.org/Graphing/NSpire_CX_P1.htm
http://www.datamath.org/Graphing/NSpire_CX_CAS_P1.htm
http://www.datamath.org/Graphing/NSpire_CX_EZ.htm

According to people who tried the prototypes themselves, the screen is not as dark in person as it was from photos posted on TI-BANK a few days ago, and even from weird angles, the calculator screen looks pretty readable:


(image found on TI-BANK forums)

The dark screen was most likely due to the calculator pictures being made with a scanner or the back-light being disabled. This means the screen doesn't have the problems some of us feared. Unless it's a passive, blurry LCD like some MP3 players, the screen quality should be on-par with the Casio Prizm.

Also, according to TI-BANK, the OS 3.0 found in prototype models has a size similar to OS 2.1. With nothing installed on the CAS mode, there is about 101.7 MB free. The CAS OS seems to be 13.5 MB large and the regular model one 15.2 MB. We do not know if the TI-84 Plus emulator is included in the latter. If it is, then there is a possibility that both TI-Nspire and TI-Nspire CX models use the same OS file.

Now that we have an idea of how the LCD brightness is and how big the OS is so far, we do hope that battery power usage will have been improved as well. Some people reports that good batteries lasts about two weeks on a TI-Nspire running Ndless programs on a regular basis, while a Casio Prizm running several SH3 assembly programs still use the battery set that came with it when bought 2.5 months ago.

Also it appears the calculator is already for sale for teachers and school at http://www.calculatrices.ch/Info.cfm?modell=TINCXCASTE&e=1

I used to think it was gorgeous, but not any more, still better than the PRIZM.

But it's nice to see pictures, and to see it is being sold already.

BASIC-wise, yes. Whenever we get Ndless working on 3.0, assembly probably won't. Different hardware and everything (the color screen)

The TI-Nspire CX will be using new 3.0 versions of the boot1 and boot2.
http://ti.bank.free.fr/index.php?mod=news&ac=commentaires&id=1010

Currently (may not be final):
* Boot1 3.0.99
* Boot2 3.0.127
(information asked to DataMath.org)

I'd imagine so, because I'm sure they'd want the bootup to be in color.

BASIC-wise, yes. Whenever we get Ndless working on 3.0, assembly probably won't. Different hardware and everything (the color screen)

I'm pretty sure Ndless could fairly easily have a backwards-compatibility mode for old Ndless programs, by setting a 4-bit palette with equivalent levels of grayscale. That wouldn't work for programs that change the palette, but it should work for most cases. (All of this assumes that TI is using the same display driver, which is pretty likely)

when is it available in america for teachers? any word on that my calc teacher was wondering

We'll find out in April if this is worth the price

My best bet for price is about $160

Quote from: apcalc on March 20, 2011, 06:17:08 pm

Hmm.. from that picture, it looks like there is some guard over the screen, preventing direct contact.  Hopefully, that would help to reduce the likelihood of screen damage.  Still, I do think they should at least give a free cover with the thing.

(Also, the color screen looks great! )

Yeah it seems like the Prizm. The Prizm has some sort of guard too. Actually, old TI calcs were like that too (TI-81, 82, some of the regular 83s, 85 and I think the TI-92 had an extra protection or something)

That's a good idea, I think. I've seen a few TI-Nspires with messed-up screens.