Most Helpful Customer Reviews
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120 of 125 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Astonishingly powerful, but awful documentation, November 4, 2003
The actual calculator itself is stunningly powerful. It is faster than the TI-92, the full keyboard makes it easier to work with than the TI-89, and the ability to solve, factor, work with imaginary numbers, give exact answers, as well as do all of these things symbolically, plus the amazing applications included (a version of Geometer's sketchpad!), make this the best calculator made by TI. Just beware that some standardized tests and some teachers will not let you use this calculator. The biggest drawback is the documentation that is supposed to help you utilize the power of this calculator. There really isn't any. There's a short manual that's included in the box, but it only gives you the broad overview of how to put the batteries in and how to turn it on and off. To find any information on how to, say, type something in that you want to factor, you have to load up the cd-rom, and hunt around on that thing to find the information you want.
Why don't they include all of this documentation along with the calculator in an actual book form? (Okay, so I know the answer to that - it saves money for them.) It's a huge hassle - if I'm at class, or work and want to be able to use some function, I have to wait to figure it out until I can get home and load up the cd-rom, find the right page, etc....not to mention that the documentation on the CD-rom isn't that helpful either. There's lots of discussion of stuff, but it is very hard to understand. A great calculator, but awful documentation that makes learning how to use all of its powerful functions frustrating and annoying.
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57 of 58 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Powerful little beast, October 2, 2003
Plain and simple, I love calculators. Yes, I have both Matlab and Mathematica running on my multiprocessor workstation but calculators have always had a special place in my heart. Since high school, I've firmly been in the HP camp and like many, I think the HP41C remains one of the finest calculators ever made. But the HP legacy started its sad decline with the 28C and the bottom fell out with the HP48G, perhaps the worst calculator HP has ever made. (It literally can take seconds to add two numbers... what could they have been thinking?)
All of that being said, I decided to venture into the TI camp, if only because they still take calculators seriously. I was dubious, however, because their machines seem designed for high school students rather than professional scientists/engineers, and this is reflected in the lack of high-end software packages available for them. Nonetheless, I don't think since the HP41 line have any calculators attracted so much interest or had so large a community built around them as have the recent TIs.
The Voyage 200 is something of a tour de force. It is based on the Motorola 68000, the same processor found in the original Macintosh and many other popular computers. It is programmable both in TI Basic and in 68000 assembly, the latter of which has lead to a rather impressive library of available games and applications that all run amazingly quickly given their platform. This whole software world is somewhat muddled by the fact that TI has released a series of operating system upgrades and patches for this calculator and wading the compatibility waters is very confusing for the uninitiated. (For example, for HP aficianados, it is quite possible to run an extremely well done RPN interface on this calculator, but it requires that you find & download both the RPN assembly program and HW2 AMS 2 TSR support (h220xTSR) if you're using the latest version of the operating system, AMS 2.09. When was the last time you worried about what operating system your calculator was running??)
Another troublesome point about this calculator is the documentation is shockingly bad. Really, it is just plain awful. It comes with a thin, almost useless manual, and you'll have to read through 20+ pages just to find out how to add 1+1. Haven't they ever heard of a "getting started quickly" guide? There are several hundred pages of manuals on CD and on the web, but in general, there are written very poorly indeed. Coming from the world of professionally written documentation for systems like Mathematica and Matlab, I realize just how lucky we are that those companies take documentation very seriously and write far simpler manuals for much more complex systems.
All in all, however, I think the Voyage 200 is the best thing going in the calculator world today. It's wonderful to once again have a calculator whose capabilities are as much fun to discover as it is to use. I doubt I'll ever find time for assembly programming on this beast, but it warms my heart to know that I could.
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54 of 56 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
The Voyage 200 is a Ti-89 made difficult, September 7, 2002
My first graphing calculator was a TI-83 Plus. What a fantastic calculator! Its ease of use is a real credit to its designers. The TI-89 is more difficult to use than the TI-83, but its not too unnecessarily hard, especially considering its advanced features.The Voyage 200, however, is a real pain in the you know what. Not only is the Voyage absent a printed manual--this may be the new cost-cutting norm for TI products--but the electronic copy is hard to use. Instead of putting all the main information in one manual like the TI-83, the Voyage 200 design team spread its manual out across 28 individual PDF files, making it nearly impossible to print out a hard copy for reference when you're away from your PC. TI could argue that it was necessary considering the large volume of information, but after perusing the PDFs--replete with numerous examples of duplicated information--I'm sure it was really about a large lack of effort. With that scolding of the manual designers out of the way, let me say that the features of this calculator are really quite good. When it comes to graphing calculators, TI really does make the best. If you are considering the most powerful graphing calculator on the market right now, it would come down to the TI-89 or this TI Voyage 200. The Voyage 200 is suppossed to be backwards compatible with the TI-89, but I've already found programs that run fine on the 89 but won't run on the 200--I can't understand why since they both use the same Motorola 68000 processor. Personally, if I had it do over again, I'd probably pick the TI-89 because its more traditionally styled case is less conspicuous, its features are easier to use, and it's manual is better written and available in hard copy. But if you want a tiny built-in QWERTY keyboard, a slightly bigger screen, more flash memory, and are not bothered by difficult documentation, then the Voyage 200 is probably your best choice.
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