Everyone has their own reason to take the professional engineer PE licensing exam. Some people pass the exam as their job requirement, others take this PE exam to get a job or get promoted in their current job. The competitive juices within you or your inner drive are something that can also motivate you to give this exam.
Regardless of whatever reason you are taking this exam, one thing is for sure that you need to get one of the approved calculators for this test. The calculator is important to facilitate your success for this high prize in your engineering profession.
However, if you are going to get into PE exams and need a calculator, you are at the right place. Here in this article, we are going to review some of the best calculators for PE exams available now in the market. Alongside this, we are also going to mention some factors that you should consider while buying the best calculators to help you in your PE exam.
| Image | Product | Feature | Price |
|---|---|---|---|
Calculator  | Texas Instruments TI – 36X Pro Scientific Calculator | Potential Calculator Easy to use Interface Highly Eligible for PE Exams Graphic Features | Check On Amazon |
Calculator  | FX – 115ESPLUS Casio FX115ESPLUS Scientific Calculator | Lighter in Weight Quite Reasonable in Price More than 280 Functions Multi-replay Function | Check On Amazon |
Calculator  | HEWLETT Packard HP 35s Scientific Calculator | Excellent Memory Offers RPM & Algebraic entry-system Lighter in weight design | Check On Amazon |
Calculator  | CASIO FX – 991ESPLUS Scientific Calculator | Natural textbook display User-friendly design Approved by NCEES | Check On Amazon |
Table of Contents
Choosing a PE Exam Calculator
While you are searching for the best calculator for your professional engineering exam here are the factors and points you need to consider:
Consider Known and Trustworthy Brand
Always make sure to consider an established and known brand in the market. A well-known brand means that you can easily get trusted reviews and tutorials to solve your issue if you have any issues occurring in the future.
All the trustworthy brands have a warranty and a guarantee that goes a long way and boosts your confidence in the quality and responsiveness of your calculator. The point to note is that the chance of getting a problematic calculator from a known brand is rare, so this is what you should do.
Go for Graphic Calculator
The best calculator for your PE exam is the one that should give you easy access to the interface for working. Thus, the graphic calculator will be the most ideal choice as it does not have any complex functions and has easy features to make it easy for you to operate.
Related Post: 6 Best Graphing Calculator in 2021
Get Familiarize With Your Calculator
That obvious for most of the students that whenever you write the exam, times seem to pass so quickly. In this regard, it is obvious for you to know and understand the full potential of your calculator to know the way you will find out its functions, command, and in-built features in no time.
Everyone knows that exam is all about time and time management is the key to give good exam. Using your calculator for the first time in between your exams is definitely wasting your time.
Buy your calculator in advance and identify it well so you will have enough time to practice your sums with that. Also, make sure to use your calculator while studying and doing practice exams as this will help you to understand your exams perfectly.
Features Your Calculator Should Handle
If you are going to give a Professional Engineering exam then make sure that your calculator is capable to do all the functions that you need it to perform. For your PE exam, your calculator should be ready to handle;
- Matrix operations
- Linear system of equations
- Interpolation
- Numerically solve certain integrals and derivatives
Things You Should Keep in Mind
That’s for sure that using a scientific calculator is a complicated thing. It always takes a good time to let you get familiar with its functions. This is the reason we said you to get the calculator in advance and begin practicing on it.
You should consider using your calculator while studying and practicing for your exams to understand its better functionality. This is quite important using it for the very first time in between your exam simply mean wasting your time. And everyone knows how time passes with speed while writing an exam.
Also, make sure to understand and know the full potential of your calculator. You should figure out and get used to the commands, functions, and other features of your calculator.
Going to previous logs and editing them is something you should know because a simple typo can be disastrous. Keep in mind that your scientific calculator can either help you pass your exam or be the reason to make you fail it. Wholly it depends on you how you make it work. In this regard, always be smart and make the right choice as it’s your PE exams.
Reviews of The Best Calculator for PE Exams
Texas Instruments TI – 36X Pro Scientific Calculator
If you are in need of the best calculator during your professional engineering exams so this Texas is worth consideration. It has a lot of reasons that you should choose this.
This calculator is a potential device on another level featuring the easiest interface ever. Alongside the top features of this device, this calculator by Texas offers you a good range of features particular to graphing on a scientific calculator platform.
You should not confuse this calculator with the standard TI – 36X as that one is primarily for high school students. However, the engineering students should consider having this quite familiar device that is able to do a lot more than just simply solving and polynomial equations.
Getting this device gives you access to advanced-level mathematics features that enable you to solve derivatives for definite integrals and calculus.
Furthermore, the device performs a range of operations within its screen that is easy as cutting a cake. You can do whatever complexity you need to solve via this with matrices edited in multi-view windows and selecting even vectors and complex numbers. This calculator allows you to solve any kind of engineering issue without much hassle.
This model of calculator is designed to simplify radicals, finding exact trig values, and generally offering a range of the desired functions via its easy-to-use interface. It is worth buying for your professional engineering exam.
Key Features
- This is a potential calculator.
- It has easy to use interface.
- The device is highly eligible for PE exams.
- The calculator has graphic features.
FX – 115ESPLUS Casio FX115ESPLUS Scientific Calculator
What’s an uphill task? It is to find out an affordable yet effective scientific calculator. For sure, it is really necessary to carefully tread in the market as it is full of half-baked devices prior to making a purchase of your own. This Casio FX115ESPLUS scientific calculator is really worth the price it is available for.
The features this calculator offers are really impressive because most of those are only available on a premium level of scientific calculators. Similar to above-mentioned Texas, this Casio is also quite easy to use with its intuitive platform.
This calculator provides you with a textbook look of expressions, math symbols, stacked fractions, and a lot more. All this makes it super easy for you to input complex equations and read the output on the screen.
Another of its thing that most of the users appreciated is that this potential device I quite lighter in weight and just weighs 3.35 ounces. This is quite a relief for the students who are always occupied with heavy books because this calculator will not be an additional load to their backpacks.
However, do not get fool by its weight as it is a lighter in weight well-made device having the typical plastic keys and hardcover that is impact-resistant to keep it safe. It is definitely a worthy consideration for the students looking for something effective but within their budget.
Key Features
- It is a lighter in weight calculator.
- The device is quite reasonable in price.
- It features more than 280 functions offering you a lot of convenience.
- It has multi-replay function to let you check previous calculator and editing the inputs.
HEWLETT Packard HP 35s Scientific Calculator
All the real friends of HP who needed to get an advanced calculator that is crafted for engineers and other working professionals should go no other than buying this HP 35s Scientific Calculator.
In comparison to the other two models we reviewed in this writ, this HP one is for almost double the price. However, it is even for a good reason. One of the best features of this device is that it provides RPN mode that is Reverse Polish Notation mode.
If you do not like or do not need this RPM mode, still it is not a loss. This HP calculator provides the user with algebraic entry-system logic mode. This one has an edge over all the other scientific calculators which mostly offer one and rarely both of these modes at once.
Even if the device has a higher price tag, it is a great deal for all the medical professionals, surveyors, engineers, scientists, and all other highly skilled professionals.
However, even if it is one of the perfect scientific calculators, it still has a few things that annoy users. It does not have eye angled display and this ends up creating a scan display a big challenge. Also, its users mentioned this calculator is most likely to skip entries while you typing keys faster.
Key Features
- This scientific calculator has excellent memory.
- The device offers RPM and Algebraic entry-system logic, both.
- It is a sleek and lighter in weight design.
CASIO FX – 991ESPLUS Scientific Calculator
This is another calculator that is approved for use in professional engineering exams by the NCEES, National Council of Examiners for Engineering and Surveying. This scientific calculator by Casio is not the cheapest option out there.
However, the features and function it has definitely ensured you the bank for your cash. Most of its users mentioned that this is the best scientific calculator for technology and engineering students.
This is a perfect device for you to solve your basic and advanced level of math problems in a few minutes. It enables you intuitive operations alongside offering you a textbook-based display that enables you to view logarithms, formulas, and even fractions in a way they appear in your textbooks.
For sure, the display abilities of this device alone are enough to cut down your stress of solving math issues almost half of it.
If you are a professional or going to give the PE exams then this is a considerable calculator for you. It is practical and functional, both with its 552 functions in total letting you have a lot of conveniences.
Another of its best thing is that the calculator has temporary formula memory that allows you to review your input.
Key Features
- The calculator by Casio has natural textbook display.
- It is a user-friendly design.
- It is approved by NCEES
FAQs Related to Best Calculator for PE Exam
There are a lot of basic calculators offered by Casio that you can get. However, those are not ideal for PE exams.
The FE i.e. Fundamentals of Engineering exam is the initial step towards the PE i.e. Professional engineering exam. It is for those students are already have or going to have an undergraduate degree in engineering from any program accredits from the AEC/ABET.
Texas Instrument and Casio are well-known and reputable brands that you should consider for buying your calculator. Most of the calculators by these brands are of the utmost quality.
Conclusion
All in all, every engineer needs to have a calculator to rely on. It is something that makes a potential difference for all the engineers out there.
It is ideal for making understandable decisions for getting back the accuracy in mathematics. The best calculator is the one that is not barred by the National Council of Examiners for Engineers and Surveying i.e. NCEES.
These are the calculators that we have reviewed for you to consider getting for your PE exams. Make sure to begin using it prior to your exams or you will face difficulty and waste your time. Hopefully, this guide will help you with the best calculator in PE exams.
For more information about calculators visit other blog posts on our website.