Zero ZGC4: A Better Graphing Calculator for School and Beyond

Graphing calculators are one of those markets that barely moved for 30 years because TI had schools locked in. Anything that breaks that is worth paying attention to.

The standard TI graphing calculator offered to schools is the TI-84 Plus CE, which is generally 140USD and up. This calculator is currently offered for 89USD so you're already immediately incorrect on the pricing. The battery in this one is roughly 50% larger but that doesn't translate to better battery life necessarily. They both allow for programming with Python but this calculator would have to try incredibly hard to be worse at Python that the TI calculator, so I'd probably say it has an edge there too.

It doesn't look like it has a CAS (so it's not for mathematicians), and the scientific notation key isn't prominent (so it's not for scientists or engineers), so... who is it for? Part of the thing with the older TI calculators is that they were good for professionals, too, not just students. (My TI-89 is still in intermittently-very-heavy use 30 years later!)

try page's pre-order link at the top goes to a 404

> USB-C charging—no more scrambling for AAA batteries

Bear with me if you’ve already seen this comment, but I dug out my old TI-89 a while ago for some reason, and all I had to do was plug in four AAA batteries and it worked.

If it had been fitted with a rechargeable battery, 30 years ago, even assuming it was still functional, I would have needed to recharge it... but with what?

Now we have USB-C rechargeable AA/AAA batteries, so there’s really no excuse.