Scientific Calculator

Although there's a strong tendency of evolving the education system to a more technological and practical approach, the process is probably going to take some time. Until then, most schools teach youngsters how to solve math equations and basic calculus without using a calculator. On the other hand, such a tool comes in handy for research as well, because it greatly cuts time and provides more accurate results, with Scientific Calculator being a suitable example.

You need to make sure your computer is equipped with Java Runtime Environment for proper functionality since the application is built on this platform. This also presents a few more advantages, because it can be used on multiple platforms. What's more, there's no setup process, thus the host machine is not affected.

At a first look it's nothing different from a basic calculator equipped with a few more buttons for several scientific expressions, such as sin, cos, tan and log. You can use your keyboard as input, but only for numerical values and simple operators, because the end result is only displayed by interacting with the main window.

However, a few seconds in and you realize it's not really what you'd expect. The concept of what you see is what you get is taken literally, with no hidden features or other functions and menus to interact with.

Calculus is done in a single row, with no history tracker for more complex expressions. What's more, you don't have any control whatsoever over proper operation order because of the lack of support for brackets. Sure, you can write anything in the input field, but result is only displayed is the application can process it.

Taking everything into consideration, we can say that Scientific Calculator is a poor choice for quickly solving math equations, even though it's equipped with several advanced operators. Even though it's lightweight and easy to use, even the Windows built-in calculator is packed with more features and functionality.