Calculated Industries 4019 Materials Estimating Calculator Buy Now

I bought this calculator for an estimating class that I was taking. We had to regularly look at plans, do dimension takeoffs and add them all up in order to quantify building components. This calculator excels at quickly adding up feet/inch measurements (including fractions of an inch), as well as converting between cubic feet, cubic yards, etc. Entering dimensions is as easy as pressing 5 6 1 / 16 (to enter 5' 6-1/16"). You can do all the basic functions, multiplication, division, etc. When you multiply feet by inches, you can get the result in square inches, feet, or yards.

There are additional functions in the calculator that I haven't used very much. You can take a measurement and convert it to useful quantities, such as board feet, tons of gravel, gallons of paint, etc. You can even set a standard cost for the item so that you can then calculate a price. For instance, you can do a takeoff of a wall, find that it's 450 square feet, then convert that to gallons of paint, and then convert that to a price.

The calculator is nice because it's got a flip cover that's hard and will prevent the buttons from being pressed while it's in your backpack or pocket. The bright yellow plastic is nice because I've already caught myself leaving it behind twice. It can run on either solar power or the internal battery. There's a little door in the back of the calculator that opens up so that you can store the manual with it. The calculator comes with two versions, one in Spanish and one in English. The manual is easy to follow and provides lots of examples on how to use the fancier functions.

Definitely a great buy. Even if you're only using this to add up fractions and quickly convert between units, it's well worth it. It's more convenient and definitely faster than using my TI-89 to do the same thing. It's also way cheaper too. One gripe I have is that it doesn't display more digits. Not a big deal, but when you're multiplying large jobs and calculating costs, it will give you an error if the answer is over 7 digits (ie. it can only go up to 9,999,999).

Make sure to read the manual or keep it with the calculator. There are a lot of cool features it has, but unless you use them regularly, you'll need to refer to the manual in order to see how to get the functions to work.Get more detail about Calculated Industries 4019 Materials Estimating Calculator.