Survey posted 2007-06-22 22:50 by Michael.

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My only complaint is that the older calculators haven't gone down too much in price. I'm sure if the pricing would decrease at the same rate as similar technologies (computers, for example), the 83+ would cost about $20 and the 89 would cost about $30.

That being said, it's worth it.

yeah, the TI-86 is still right around $109 and as been for as long as i can remember (5+ years)

Greg

There is inflation though, to be technically accurate. $109 five years ago is the same as $126 now.

If the older calculators would be that much cheaper, nobody would buy the newer ones because they don't offer that much new stuff. Yeah, more memory, a bit more speed, and a USB port sure are nice, but I wouldn't put down an extra $80 just for those, and I'm quite certain parents wouldn't either for something that is supposed to just do math and graphing.

There is a fixed price to manufacture these things. You have to make the enclosure and keyboard and assemble the thing regardless of the quality of the CPU or the amount of ram.

Software also costs money.

Yes, of course it costs money. All I'm saying is that it costs them a lot less money today than it costed them 10 years ago. The major reason that things cost so much at the beginning of their life compared to the end is because generally a company will get back all of their "development" costs as soon as they can. That includes software. They don't have to create the software over and over. They upgrade it, but that doesn't cost nearly as much.

The reason that TI is able to keep these high prices is due to a stable demand year after year. If kids would start buying HPs instead of TIs, I guarantee you that TI would start selling the 83+ again and at a much lower price, and after kids start buying TIs, HP would do the same thing.

'generally a company will get back all of their "development" costs as soon as they can'
Unless that would mean the calculators would become *so* expensive that nobody would buy them. In that case it's very possible that TI would decide to spread earning the development money back over many more years than usual, in which case it's perfectly reasonable that the calcs don't drop in price any faster.
Note that I'm not saying this is the case, only that it could be. Keep in mind that graphing calcs are produced in far smaller quantities than for instance personal computers, which means that economies of scale are less helpful to drive the price down.

When you buy a TI calculator most of what you pay for is software, the processors and other hardware don't cost that much. on the other hand when you buy an HP or Casio you pay for hardware but get poorly programed software.

Look the only reason that the TI's cost so much is because they basically run the market. For the most part, kids buy these for school. Because schools want to make things simple, the get the leading name, then require students do the same. in the future, the textbooks start to cover things specifically for TI's because of the use in schools, and because the schools will also always use textbooks (well duh) they will require the calculators that are used in them TI's. I could go on and on. It's an ongoing, ever strengthening, mostly unbreakable chain (this is just like Ipods - f'''in' apple). Therefore, the don't need to lower prices, and since they don't need to, why the hell would they. It's all about the moolah.

The components used to make the calculators are very very cheap. You're paying for TI's ROM, and basically nothing else.

You're almost never paying for the components. TI probably spends $5 on electronics and $5 on board/case.

TI has a virtual monopoly over the graphing calculator market, so yes, the prices are too high as any profit maximizing monopoly would tend to produce. However, for the members of this community, it's worth it.

No it's not, and I think it's a shame to abuse your monoply that way, the price is the only thing that keeps me from buying a new calculator (my parents bought me a claculator because it was neccesary for school (a ti83+), too bad the next year they upgraded to the ti84+, wich has tons more memory, faster processor and a new look. To make things worse my sister is a year younger than I am, and she got the new shiny ti84+ and I'm stuck with my ti83+... But no hair on my head is thinking of buying a new calculator for €100!

Claculator!

<3 ma claculatrs.

I agree with the monopoly deal. The only other company that was able to keep up was HP, and they thought it better to go else were. I loved how they constantly updated, had easy and STRONG calcs, and lowered their prices accordingly.

I have always loved the 86, and wanted to see that beast get upgraded. I've wanted to buy one but they NEVER went down in price. I paid the same for my 86 when i was in 8th grade... about 10 years ago. Bummer my cousin stole it from me.

i bet if they outsourced a bit more they could make a cheaper and better calculator. Like say they took the nintendo ds screen with HP's processor AND assembly written OS, they'd be unstoppable. oh well. :end rave:

Um, you sure you want to outsource? Granted, it would probably make it cheaper, but better...? I've been on a study trip to India and was not overly impressed by the quality of the work there. As one of the lecturers in the pre-program said: "Many companies went to Asia, the first are already coming back.".

As is Microsoft. The only difference is the calc only dumps 500K of RAM when it crashes and Windows dumps 30+GB of documents/software.

I bought mine on ebay: v200 for $100, ti84+se for $80. :D So I'm not complaining.

You'll note that NOBODY has said that prices are just a little too low.

I noticed that. Were it not for that, we would have a nice bell curve going.

smooth!

wait, how'd you get the 2000 for $100? i got my 84+ for around 90

I got Mine For 130 But I got the ti 84+ se.
But I think it isn't That bad because of teh monoply. Look at apple ;)

I bought my TI-89 for ~$120 more than 6 years ago, if I remember correctly. Titanium goes for $30 more than that today.