This looks really nice, but what is the advantage of a dedicated graphing calculator in a world full of smart phones?
Specialized UIs and a physical keyboard means a user who has mastered a graphing calculator along with its associated CAS, can be far more efficient than someone poking on a virtual touch screen.
TI-89, as maligned as it is, has a UI that is designed to do one thing, and one thing only, a lot of math, as fast as its little CPU can chug through. Presumably this calculator is the same.
That said, there documentation is seriously underwhelming, with many (most) pages being a brief summary and nothing else.
The hardware has an "exam mode" that it is non-trivial to get out of (https://www.numworks.com/resources/faq/)
I do expect that to be hacked, though. The FAQ says:
"How to exit the exam mode?
Simply plug your device to a computer using the supplied USB cable. you will then be prompted to exit the exam mode."
It wouldn't surprised if one could fake that computer by powering a USB plug with a small battery. If not, the OS source is available, so a backdoor for leaving exam mode likely isn't far away.
But the most impressive I've seen were some calculators I saw in Shenzhen a few years ago which looked like simple solar-powered 4-function ones, but were actually programmable and had several tens of KB of memory. Trying to use that functionality with a 8-digit 7-segment display, however, was quite challenging.
Did the solar panel actually power it, or was there a hidden battery?
Nope, this calculator is not allowed on any of the major standardized tests.
https://collegereadiness.collegeboard.org/sat/taking-the-tes...
https://apstudent.collegeboard.org/takingtheexam/exam-polici...
http://www.act.org/content/dam/act/unsecured/documents/ACT-c...
And many -- perhaps most -- high school teachers have a similar "white list based" policy because they're unable or unwilling to a) admit that any graphing calculator makes cheating basically impossible to prevent without extremely careful proctoring; and/or b) emphasize learning even at the expense of weakening the signaling value of credentials.
IMO tests should be designed sot that calculators aren't necessary. I can't ever remember using a calculator in university, and that's really the only place I actually learned any mathematics in a classroom setting.
> The NumWorks Graphing Calculator matches all the requirements of the ACT calculator policy and is permitted for use on that test. It is currently under review by the College Board for use on the SAT.