Texas Instruments TI-108 Solar Power Calculator/Teacher’s Kit (set of 10)

Here are the "good" and "bad" on this product...ADVANTAGES.1. PRICE: I was able to purchase ten for $30. Although "Used," all were functional..2. BRAND: Texas Instruments were among the first firms to market calculators in the early 1970s. I owned its first scientific model - $175. It reduced my need to calculate statistical equations from scratch and saved me hours of tedious work. My possession lasted 20 years. Since then, almost all future purchases were TI. Although I have tried Casio and no-name brands, the most dependable and durable was this brand..3. FEATURES: All basic calculator features were present. Most important was the solar power strip, eliminating the need for batteries. A sliding plastic cover kept the keys protected from dust and physical damage..4. DURABILITY: It is "classroom and kid tested." If the product can survive elementary children, it will last for years. Everyday at school is a torture test with the constant dropping to concrete floors, being tossed into a basket, and poked by little fingers.

i bought them for my 7th grade math class (30) of them. they are awesome. the school had provided the classroom with a cheaper brand, but the kids tore the numbers off them (of the numbers (keys) fell off them. I highly recommend these calculators. We have only used them for 6 weeks and I will update this if anything changes.Update. I purchased these in the spring and still love them. I need to buy 10 more as I keep one at home, gave one to my mother and ONLY 1 gone missing (with every kid having a cell phone, I don't think they are tempted by a $5 calculator). I am about to place my order for 10 more and wanted to update this.

There appears to be some variability in what people are getting when they buy this set. It should be a brand-new, sealed box of ten.I bought 30, which came in 3 sealed, brown packages with Texas Instruments clearly labeled on them. Inside each package was a large envelope containing some literature, a large, folded poster of a TI-108, and a CD containing some PDFs with so-so teaching plans. An inner box contained the ten calculators, individually wrapped with a foam spacer. Each calculator had a slide-off cover to protect it. I removed the foam and was able to store 29 calculators in one box (with the covers still on the calculators).

Doesn’t come with covers, even though in the third photo the cover can be seen around the edges of the calculator.

Very nice good quality

While it says they come with covers, my kit did not come with covers.

Dunno why they are labeled for use in elementary classrooms. It's the only calculator I let my 7th and 8th graders use because they still have to know math basics. For example, I caught some of my students using their phone calculators to figure out scientific notation problems. Since I purchased four classroom sets of these simple calculators, they now have to actually figure out how to solve problems of that nature.

I bought 40 of these calculators for my classroom, so I could use them for science (AP Biology) and for math class. I dislike graphing and modern scientific calculators, as they allow students to enter whole equations or expressions, where the calculator does all processing, meaning some students never learn how to think through math problems or apply math rules. These are perfect calculators for school, since they only take one number at a time. They're also solar, so I don't have to worry about batteries!