Texas Instruments Debuts Lighter, Colorful TI-84 Plus CE

We’ve come a long, long way since high school in the early 00s.

You remember the TI-83, right? Remember Tetris? Drugwars? Remember the monochrone and only knowing one or two classmates who actually owned a sync cable, allowing them to download games onto their calculators, making them the most popular student in Algebra II?

Oh yeah, and drawing graphs. And cosines. Math.

The graphing calculator has gone the way of the cellphone. It is thinner, lighter, faster, colorful, and it actually has a USB port now.

Texas Instruments today announced the TI-84 Plus CE, a 30 percent thinner, 30 percent lighter version of the formerly boring graphing calculator, which also comes in a variety of fun colors.

TI created the TI-84 Plus CE after listening to student feedback about the calculator. We don’t think gaming came into the equation.

“Students asked us to make their go-to graphing calculator slimmer, sleeker, more colorful, and lightweight, and we answered with the modern, streamlined design of the TI-84 Plus CE,” said Peter Balyta, Ph.D., president of TI Education Technology. “Once you hold the new TI-84 Plus CE in your hand, you will immediately see and feel the improvements.”

The new calculator has built-in storage, so that students can save graphs, images, and data.

Oh, and the battery lasts a month on a single charge.

The Dallas Morning News had an exclusive on the Plus CE’s announcement, but even they couldn’t squeeze a price out of TI. The older TI-84 Plus C costs up to $150 in stores, so we imagine that the CE will be in that range, but it could be as high as $200.

The company also promises that parents can buy a single TI-83 Plus CE for their child in middle school, and it will serve them in every math course they need to take in high school, college and beyond- including algebra, geometry, calculus and statistics.

It is also permitted on the PSAR, SAT, and ACT, as well as AP tests.

TI-84 Plus CE Specifications and Features:

• Screen size: 320 x 240 pixels (2.8″ diagonal)
• Screen resolution: 140 DPI, 16-bit color
• Available in multiple colors including silver, red, blue, hot pink, plum and black
• 3 MB FLASH ROM memory for data archive and apps storage
• 154 KB of available RAM memory
• USB unit-to-unit cable included for communication with TI-84 Plus and TI-84 Plus C Silver Edition