At the present time, SELLmatix PocketPos requires Windows Mobile 2003 Second Edition or later.
However after the next upgrade, PocketPos will require at least Windows Mobile 5.0. Do not buy devices running versions of Windows Mobile earlier than version 5.0
PocketPos requires a WiFi adaptor that can connect to a local WiFi Access Point to send orders back to the Control machine. In theory (and we have tested it), you could use a Bluetooth connection instead of WiFi, but this does not work very well because connections are dropped too quickly.
Some early models of Pocket PCs had WiFi that could be plugged into an expansion slot. While this can work, it tends to be unreliable. Get a device with a built in WiFi adaptor.
Business Background
For a long time, Pocket PCs running Windows Mobile were the dominant mobile computing device,
and other companies with competing platforms were gradually taken over or went out of business.
The biggest manufacturer of Pocket PCs has been HP, however around the time they bought Autonomy, they announced that they would stop manufacturing these devices. As a result the price of these units jumped and availability became tight.
Even though HP have since reversed their decision, the market has only partly returned to the way it was, and there is a new generation of Windows Mobile 8 which is about to become available with significantly different functionality. Significant software development will be required to make use of the new features in Windows Mobile 8.
The functionality of the old Pocket PCs and Windows Mobile phones can most kindly be called "tired", and with heavy use they do wear out. Field experience shows that these devices processing 200+ orders per day have a life of around 2 years before they start to become unreliable.
Because these devices have been the main mobile platform, there are a lot of different applications that use the old Pocket PCs, and we expect the used market to be in short supply when manufacturers switch to Windows Mobile 8, because a lot of the old software will have trouble running on the new version.
For these reasons, we believe that Android is a better choice for for Mobile terminals, at this time. SELLmatix PosDroid for Android currently has more functionality than PocketPos.
The next major upgrade of PocketPos will focus on Windows Mobile 8, and we have not yet determined what old devices the upgrade will support.
Even if you currently use PocketPos on older Pocket PCs, you can run any mix of Pocket PCs and Android devices on the same system.
If you really must buy a Pocket PC, here are some of the ones that work the best.
