Pocket Calculators and/or decent applications that don't break the bank?

[Jeff Kelly]

I need a decent calculator for work and I'm looking for recommendations.

I'm looking for something that:

- can do most mathematical operations
- can do logs and exponentials in base 2, 10 and e (natural)
- can do trigonometric functions

i.e the normal stuff

I also need

- statistical functions (nothing fancy but I need the basics)
- handling of complex numbers
- the ability to display numbers in binary and hexadecinmal
- the ability to display decimal fractions (a.xxxxxx) as common fractions (a/b) would be nice
- graphing functions would be nice isn't a must though
- twos-complement and fractional representation for binary and hex numbers would be great but it is no must

In short a calculator that can do most of the stuff I'd need for electrical engineering and software engineering work.

- a UI/usability concept that is not rooted in 1970's technology and that I won't hate to use. Probably the most important feature. Too many device still require you to learn arcane sequences of button presses for even rather basic stuff.

I don't care if it's a calculator device or an application but it shouldn't break the bank. My personal limit at the moment would be around $200. I hate that my colleagues always use mathlab/simulink even for relatively simple stuff given that it's a complex and expensive tool and that it's more suited for complex algorithm design and signal analysis work but it shouldn't be at mathematica/maple levels of complexity/features either and I'd rather not buy a $200 TI or similar calculator on a whim since I don't think that Amazon's returns policy would be sufficient enough for me to test it.

[edit] addendum, it seems that many current products are aimed more at high school/college students and people that have to do standardized tests and not at professional users. Both in what features are/are not included and that you even can disable/enable functions for tests/exams. I'm looking for a professional solution/not educational

[Quinton]

If you have an Android device, RealCalc (https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=uk.co.nickfines.RealCalc) is what I've used forever as a basic scientific calculator.  The look and feel is a bit like an HP 32S (which may disqualify it under your anti-70s-ux policy) and I'm not sure if it supports complex numbers.  It has n! / nCr / nPr but that seems to be the extent of stats support (possibly too basic?).  Does have DEC/BIN/HEX support, no graphing, can operate in RPN mode, etc.

[Jeff Kelly]

I like TI or HP calculators - in principle. It's just that some UI concepts made sense when the underlying technology was limited and a calculator was based on a small dedicated 4 bit ot 8 bit chip.

Nowadays though I feel that things should work a little bit more comfortably than 'press 2nd function + Button X' to store a value or use some sort of function. So it's a shame that most calculator apps basically ape the UI of classic calculators instead.

[Ghambit]

If you're not doing any kind of coursework then I'd say to install sciPy on a nice laptop or tablet and learn how to use it/program (this is what I'm doing presently in addition to the standard cheap graphing calculator).  Much of STEM seems to be slowly moving away from proprietary stuff like Matlab.
If you're doing coursework (which only allows graphing calcs at most) then just buy an old TI-85.

Sounds like 99% of what you're doing at work is reliant on functions, so why not just bite the bullet and start coding?

The other option of course is to buy a WolframAlpha sub, but you'd always need an internet connection to use it unless you can con your bosses into buying a node.

Note:  not much has really changed from that 1970's tech. you're referring to.  That same chipset is used today in most every calculator...  my TI-85 is 20 years old and still going strong; and I still have yet to figure it out entirely.

[Jeff Kelly]

I'll look into sciPy but If I have the time and a workload that warrants programming stuff I've already got lots of options. I could use Matlab/Simulink, I could prototype stuff in excel etc.

What I need is something that offers me a decent subset of those functions for scratchpad/quick calculations/quick and dirty use where I simply don't want to fire up a solver/symbolic algebra/algorithm modelling suite and spend the time to input that stuff but where the standard calculator apps don't offer me enough flexibility.

There's a use for those packages but sometimes I simply want to do a few simple calculations without having to open a worksheet and specify them in lambda calculus for a symbolic maths app/solver.

[eldaec]

TI-83 is as far as I'm concerned the best calculator on earth. I have Andy-83 to emulate it on android devices.

Mathlab I love for symbolic processes, but honestly the real world applications that need it are limited.