Hi,

I'm looking to get a calculator soon. I'm a teenager, who wants to have the option of games and programmes, but needs a calculator for A-Level Maths (UK). I was going to get the TI Nspire CX CAS but, then, the HP Prism which, also, has CAS was announced. Should I wait for the HP? Which one will have a better programming community? Thanks.

James

Well, the TI-89 is a good choice too, but it does not feature a color screen.
Personally the 89 is my favorite calculator(I'm not such a many-pixels-guy), but I think the Nspire CX CAS is a very good choice too.

I don't know much about non-TI-calcs. The TI-89 really is the best for school, but it is not allowed on the ACT. You need a TI-84+ for that (best calc allowed on the ACT)

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Anyways, for school, I suggest a TI-89, really. It's allowed on more exams in the states than the rest (none of them are allowed on the ACT), and it has the best CAS.

For programming, I suggest the TI Nspire CX CAS because it has a lot of the community back up, which means you can get more games/get more programming help.

The Nspire series' CAS is slightly better than the TI-68k series' CAS. Some bugs and limitations have been fixed, many bugs were added in the latest versions of the Nspire OS.
Programmability of the TI-68k series remains better (and will certainly always remain so), but few people produce new things on the TI-68k series.

It will take years for the HP Prime user and programmer community to become close to the TI community - assuming that event ever occurs.

Where does the Nspire CX CAS have better CAS than the 89? I'd honestly like to know this.

@pimathbrainiac:

Where does the Nspire CX CAS have better CAS than the 89?

* I once entered several inputs from the third-party list of known bugs / limitations of the TI-68k / AMS series, and the Nspire's CAS produced a correct answer for some of them. But then, from OS 3.0.1.1753 onwards (i.e. since two years ago), the Nspire's OS barfs on quite a number of inputs that neither the TI-68k series, nor earlier Nspire OS versions, choke on...
* the Nspire has several built-in functions that the TI-68k doesn't have out of the box, for instance some stats functions inherited from the TI-Z80 series.
* the Nspire's CAS can operate on numbers slightly larger than the TI-68k's CAS in some circumstances, as shown by different reactions to arguments for e.g. the factorial and power functions. Not that it matters in practice, as shown by how little-known this fact is.

The open TI-68k series' CAS can be expanded through C/ASM, which is not possible in a meaningful way for the closed Nspire series. http://www.ticalc.org/archives/files/fileinfo/437/43727.html is useless in practice due to insufficient platform documentation (and I get to criticize it as much as I want because I'm the author ^^).

@JamesNewman:

Are there any Windows/Online Nspire CX emulators? I've found ones for older calculators but not the Nspire CX.

nspire_emu, whose latest version is 0.70, supports the CX

And, what is the Nspire CX Premium?

We don't know...

Where does the Nspire CX CAS have better CAS than the 89? I'd honestly like to know this.

I do not have benchmarks nor a lot of tests, but if feels better, especially on the speed of computation/solving.

can you add notes/formulas on the TI Nspire?

Yes.

can you search your notes?

No.

On the other hand, you can use Lua to make such a program to search through your program notes.

Where does the Nspire CX CAS have better CAS than the 89? I'd honestly like to know this.

It's also important to note that the CAS software on the Nspire evolved from the CAS on 68k systems.

Regarding the HP Prime vs the TI-Nspire CAS, the Nspire has a lot more backing of teachers and there is an incredible amount of activities you can download.