The Difference between the Casio Prizm and Nspire CX

Submitted By: Stefan Bauwens Date: March 09, 2012, 12:57:30 pm Views: 3477
Summary: This article would have come out a few month ago, but due to certain reason it didn't. hopefully it can still help you if you are unsure what calculator to buy.

The difference between the Casio Prizm and the TI-nspire CX

What is the difference? Why do people tell that the one is better than the other? I am going to try to find out which one is truly the best even though I don't own a Prizm.
I've put together some important specifications of both calculators for you to see:


As you can see from above the Prizm has a bigger screen in terms of pixels. The difference in storage memory on the the hand, is shocking in some way! But as you can see the Nspire CX does have more RAM, but you can't use it. The thing is you don't have to. All the programming is ran in flash. The speed on the CX appears to be faster than the Prizm but I have read that for some things the Prizm can be faster.
The CX has, as some other Nspire's, on the other hand a touchpad. With this you can control a mouse on the screen.

If you buy one of these calcs you will probably want to:
-Program on it
-Play games on it
-Use it for school

Now, since the Nspire has a crappy basic language(no getkey, no drawing functions!) it makes the Prizm's basic much better al though it seems to be slower.
The Nspire has such a basic language that it is actually impossible to create games on it. I recommend reading this page: http://tibasicdev.wikidot.com/nspire
The Prizm also has C support which the CX doesn't have naturally(We use the hack Ndless 3.1). Sadly, TI blocks this hack Ndless often when they have a new update.
The Nspire, does have another good programable language: LUA. Lua is not better than C but it is much better than the TI-Basic. With programs as onclua you can even program on calc. I have heard that the new update that will be coming for the CX adds a physics engine to Lua, but at the other hand blocks Ndless. I have seen the physics engine already in action and it looks very nice and pretty fast. I don't know how fast a new hack will come out(Ndless 3.2) though.
Now, I think both calculators are quite good to play games on. Obliterate, by Kerm Martian and Bobby Carrot, by Loic Pujet are good examples of this.
The C game nDoom is one of the most notable Ndless games and I must say it runs as a charm. On the Prizm however, it would probably not run this fast. But programmed differently could possibly avoid this.
I believe that at the moment there are more games for the Nspire(non CX versions too) than the Prizm which makes the CX more attractive of course. But this can change: More Prizm users means more games.
So when you buy a calculator, you will normally 'have to' use it for homework and school. So which one is the best at this? Well calculations are faster on the CX. Prizm doesn't have 3D graphing and the CX does. The Nspire is better on this point.
The Prizm has better keys than the CX. They are a lot bigger and have apparently a nicer feel too. The CX is more heavy than the Prizm but is more thin and and has a less cheap feel to it according to some people.

To me they both have their negative points and their positive. The CX stands out on his hardware and so if I had to choose I would choose that one. But it depends on what you want to do. The price difference also isn't too big. 'Just' $20(These prices count of what I've seen on the website of Casio and on Walmart's site). If you can't handle TI constant updates that may block Ndless I recommend the Prizm. If you want a mouse and a more computer like interface in stead of a 'big cellphone'(Prizm) I recommend the CX.

Stefan Bauwens

Thanks goes to: Several Omnimaga members who helped me with some questions(Josjuice, Bridged One, Adriweb,…) and the Internet of course ;)

This article was written a few month ago, but never got published. I now edited it so it will still fit in the Calculator world as we know it today. :P
Also if you would notice something false/mistake/etc.. please say so.  Thank you.



                     

Rating: This article has not been rated yet.

Comments



Powered By SMF Articles by CreateAForum.com