The TI-84 Plus C Silver Edition Graphing Calculator is a robust and sophisticated calculator, easily the best Texas Instrument option for serious math and science students who want excellent capabilities in vibrant, clarifying color.
Experience The New C (For Color) Display
The TI-84 Plus C Silver Edition has a sharp and brilliant 16-bit color (140 DPI) display and a backlit screen as large as 320 x 240 pixels. This is not a merely surface-level benefit, but can really enhance learning and calculator capabilities: compared to the TI-84 Plus Silver Edition – which has a grayscale and non-backlit screen of only 96 x 64 pixels – the TI-84 Plus C Silver Edition excels at communicating visual results.
The high-resolution display not only has extreme clarity in itself, but also comes with 17 different zoom functions. Add gray grid-lines to a colorful graph in red, green, and blue, and make the analysis easy-to-read and intuitive. Color coding sets, equations, graphs, variables, and more is a great way to group and assess data, especially functions, and there are 15 different color options for function graphing (which is, obviously, one of the less-readable options on a gray-scale and low-resolution calculator).
With split screen data display and 8 different graph styles to choose from, the TI-84 Plus C Silver Edition is equipped to help the pre-calculus and calculus student excel. Another option is to import color images via USB from a computer and perform applied calculations on an image overlay. This takes real-world applicability to another level, and can produce dynamic, engaging, and practical math classes and homework assignments.
Pre-Loaded Apps Included
This calculator also comes with three essential applications pre-loaded (App4Math, the Polynomial Root Finder/Simultaneous Equation Solver, and Vernier EasyData for chemistry and physics laboratory experiments) and a plethora of additional applications available for purchase now or (wrapping up their development) later in 2013. And, of course, applications for the TI-83 Plus and TI-84 Plus are fully compatible with the TI-84 Plus C Silver Edition.
The TI-84 Plus C Silver Edition comes with 3.5 MB of ROM, and compared to the TI-84 Plus Silver Edition’s 1.5 MB, this makes for hugely superior storage and performance. Students can even save semesters worth of math progress with a TI connectivity cord and TI connectivity software. The TI-84 Plus C Silver Edition can connect to computers, both to receive color images for manipulation on the calculator screen and to save information on the computer for long-term storage.
Great for Teaching
For the classroom experience, teachers can work with the TI SmartView Emulator Software and an in-school projector to display the calculator screen on the projection screen for all the students. Imagine a geometry class where angles in real buildings around campus are captured with a camera, transferred to the computer, then to the calculator, and then to the projection screen, where all the students can follow along. The Teacher Pack comes with a 10-calculator charging station and cords for linking calculator-to-computer and calculator-to-calculator, which can vastly streamline the classroom experience.
Testing with The TI-84 Plus C Silver Edition
The TI-84 Plus C Silver Edition comes with a rechargeable battery, unlike the TI-84 Plus Silver Edition, and has sturdy cases with color-change options to customize for your student. This is a sustainable and long-term purchase! And you can take it from PSATs through SATs: this calculator is approved for standardized tests that allow graphing calculators, including the PSAT, SAT, and ACT, as well as Advanced Placement, International Baccalaureate, and Praxis examinations. For teachers administering their own tests on classroom material, the application Test Guard 4.0 (for the teacher’s TI-84 Plus C Silver Edition) will wipe user data from students’ calculators before a test to prevent cheating, and restore the data securely after the test is complete.
Compared with the slightly-lesser TI-84 Plus Silver Edition, the C-for-color makes all the difference and is well worth the small price increase. Having high-resolution color image overlays and the ability to differentiate functions by color is an immensely helpful asset. Geometry and calculus lessons will become more engaging with such quality screen resolution and color to enliven and clarify data. And compared with the exorbitantly-priced and over-the-top-of-the-line TI-Nspire series, the TI-84 Plus C Silver Edition has no gratuitous functions and is an extremely versatile calculator at an excellent price. It will serve students through middle- and high-school, or through high-school and college, and with its robust hardware, sensitive capabilities, and the developments in TI-applications; you can expect to get many years of quality learning from this calculator.
