I have owned this calculator for about two months. I don't like it much. If I had to do it all over again I would spend more time considering the HP financial calculator.
The most annoying thing about this calculator is that the buttons are so hard to press. Sometimes, when I am entering many values and punching away at the calculator quickly, the buttons feel so resistant that it often misses some of my keystrokes. That forces me to press the buttons slowly to make sure that everything I press gets entered. I have not had this problem with other calculators. I haven't taken the exam I am studying for yet, but when I do, I hope this wont take up too much of time on exam day.
Also, in the CFA Level 1 curriculum, the annuity payment for an ordinary annuity is a positive number, represented by the variable A. But on the calculator, you have to enter the annuity payment as a negative number to get the correct result. Under most circumstances this wouldn't seem like a big deal but with so much to learn for the exam, this is something that I would rather not have to make a mental note of on exam day.
The calculator does have some positives. The best part of my experience so far has been with the statistical functions. All you have to do is enter the observed value for up to two random variables and it will display the mean, the population standard deviation and the sample standard deviation of both variables. It also stores these results so that you can manipulate them.
Another huge plus is the calculator's memory functions.
Finally, I am getting used to the cash flow functions and, up to now, have had a decent time with them. But, of course, using Excel is so much easier.
It probably also does correlation, but I don't know yet because I haven't needed to use that function yet.
Update 7/3/2008: If I had to write this review again, I would give it at least four stars. The more I studied for the exam, the more comfortable I became with the calculator. Referring back to the instructions from time to time was also extremely helpful. Finally, I ended up passing the exam using the calculator and was able to move through the questions rather quickly.Get more detail about Texas Instruments BA II Plus Professional Financial Calculator.
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