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16 of 17 people found the following review helpful:
2.0 out of 5 stars
Bad screen, poor documentation, lopsided CAS, August 23, 2005
This review is from: Casio ClassPad 300 Touch-Screen Graphing Scientific Calculator (Electronics)
First off, I bought this calculator more out of excitement and curiosity than need. I thought a touch screen interface would be a wonderful thing for a calculator, and the descriptions leading up to the ClassPad's release were tantalizing and exciting. To sum up, what I feel I actually have is a strange mixture of poor planning and deep insensitivity to users' needs.
The display contrast is terrible. And if you try to remedy this with a strong light source, you trade horrible contrast for double images caused by shadows. The 'screen protector' Casio provides is no help, either. It adds a reflection problem to the mix.
The huge amount of screen real estate seems like it would be a wonderful thing. Unfortunately, it is used by the calculator's OS with stunning inefficientcy. Even performing basic calculations can be frustrating. As soon as you bring up the soft keyboard, a full half of your screen is lost. Answers or problems that exceed one line are simply truncated, followed by an ellipsis and a tiny, tiny triangle you must tap to see the rest of the line. There is no way to display the whole line at the same time.
The touch screen interface, the most intriguing aspect of this calculator for me (before purchase), is very poorly implimented. The calculator has a very basic keypad for entering numbers and basic functions. It also has dedicated keys for three variables, x, y and z. Oddly, they have no keys for storing anything in these variables. The only way to do it is using the 'soft keyboard', a touch screen keyboard with several panels of keys, all of which are quite tiny and very difficult to see due to the poor display. Imagine being in an engineering or technical environment and having to pull out a stylus every time you wish to do anything but the basic four functions. You cannot lay this calculator on a table and use it with one hand effectively, unless you wish to try to balance the stylus in your remaining fingers as you enter numbers, then flip it about to use it on the soft keyboards. And yes, you must use the stylus. All the soft keys are far too tiny to be used with a fingertip.
The documentation is bewildering. Individual commands and functions are often explained in relation to other commands and functins, and examples are given with no remarks or explainations. The upshot is that when you need to understand a function, you often have to make several trips to various indexes, back to pages that explain other functions, only to be driven back to the indexes again. To top it off, many functions have bewildering, counterintuitive names. What might be a self-contained 'if' command in another calculator or in a spreadsheet, for instance, is called 'piecewise' in the ClassPad.
The CAS is odd. As a matter of fact, the entire operating system is confusing at times. Menus are arranged in strange ways, icons on toolbars give few clues as to what function they perform. The built-in applications are not even loosly tied together, save by obscure system variables whose names are all but meaningless to humans. There's a plethora of functions and commands, but there is odd and glaring omissions as well. Who has seen a recent scientific calculator, for instance, that has no engineering format for the display? Only the ClassPad.
Programmability of this calculator is weak. It is especially difficult to prompt users for input, as there are odd limitations on things like input and output commands. And, of course, the poor, difficult to use documentation does not help.
This is a machine with tremendous potential that is marred by poor implimentation, and after having one for some years now, I see no signs of improvement. I would strongly advise anyone considering this calculator to visit the Universal Calculator Forum's ClassPad area. Read it carefully before investing in this expensive but frustrating machine. In my book, it is not a practical calculator for anyone, though some students seem to like it. Use this URL- http://www.casiocalc.org/ and click on the ClassPad forum.
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27 of 31 people found the following review helpful:
1.0 out of 5 stars
Unusable LCD Display, September 17, 2004
This review is from: Casio ClassPad 300 Touch-Screen Graphing Scientific Calculator (Electronics)
The LCD diplay on these units (I have purchased two, now, with the identical problem) is so bad that the units are essentially unusable. The LCD display contrast is very, very low. (it is hard to believe that the contrast is even 10:1? (a good LCD computer monitor is about 500:1))
Even under the best lighting conditions, carefully holding the instrument just so, etc. the units are hardly even readable. I have 1) replaced the batteries (both the batteries that came with the units and these replacement batteries tested fully charged) 2) carefully adjusted the contrast (being unusable is the BEST that I could get, any other contrast is hopelelly worse) 3) reset the unit, etc.
After the problem with the first unit, I looked at the Amazon.com reviews and the reviews did not mention this problem. I therefore, reasonably, assumed that this first unit was defective and so I arranged to exchange it for another one. Unfortunately, the second unit's display is equally abominable so I assume that this very unfortunate defect is intrinsic to the product.
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9 of 10 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
New "Classpad 300 PLUS" has enhanced screen, October 17, 2005
This review is from: Casio ClassPad 300 Touch-Screen Graphing Scientific Calculator (Electronics)
The major drawback of the Casio classpad 300 was its screen. The constrast was so poor that it was hardly usable at all.
Now Casio have replaced the Casio Classpad 300 by the Casio Classpad 300 PLUS, with a dramatically enhanced screen. The constrast is now very good under most lighting conditions. The operating system has also been enhanced, offering amongst other things a choice between the standard characters set and a bold characters set.
All in all, this makes the Casio Classpad 300 PLUS one of the most powerful, integrated and easy-to-use graphing calculator ever.
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