Another market 'first' for J2, as its new J2 630 touchscreen EPoS extends the life of the J2 580 and further reduces cost of ownership

This article is brought to you by Retail Technology Review: Another market 'first' for J2, as its new J2 630 touchscreen EPoS extends the life of the J2 580 and further reduces cost of ownership.

Specialist manufacturer of PC-based touchscreens, LCD touchscreen monitors and point-of-sale hardware to the retail, hospitality and leisure industries worldwide, J2 Retail Systems, has launched its latest EPoS unit, the J2 630.

At the heart of the J2 630 is a new backwards-compatible processor that dramatically extends till life beyond its normal 5-7 years.  As the latest in a long list of market 'firsts', J2 has created a motherboard which can be slotted into the tens of thousands of model J2 580s machines that are in use worldwide, to maximise the investment that end-users have made in these machines.

Says J2's co-founder and managing director, Moray Boyd: "Rather than dispose of a till when it needs to be upgraded or repaired, the slot-in compatible motherboard converts the J2 580 into the latest model J2 630.  It's environmentally sound to reuse and recycle the cabinets, I/O, peripherals and touchscreen that these models have in common.  Just disposing of the hardware makes poor economic sense and creates another landfill problem."

The J2 630 also builds on all the functionality it has developed since the J2 580's launch to make the J2 630 fanless, feature-rich and exceptionally reliable. This model uses SAW touchscreen technology which, because it can only be operated with a finger touch, wears out very slowly.  This makes it ideal for the retail sector, where a 10-year lifespan can be confidently predicted.

By extending the life of the J2 580, or by offering a long lifecycle as a J2 630 in its own right, this new unit significantly improves the return on investment that end-users can expect and makes for a very low cost of ownership.

"Our philosophy is to bring costs down.  We don't have an agenda to force users to upgrade and replace units needlessly," adds Boyd: "Maximising EPoS reliability and performance, whilst minimising lifecycle costs, are the goals that drive our business.  Users tell us J2 technology can't be matched for low TCO."

Hospitality operators and retailers are increasingly aware of the importance of 'total cost of ownership' when investing in new EPoS.  Focus has moved from the purchase price alone to take into account associated costs including environmental issues, reliability and serviceability, which together can amount to 3-5 times the initial investment.   

J2 has always pioneered lower TCO-oriented technology and introduced innovations that significantly drive down lifecycle costs.  Whilst all J2 units are green, sustainable and powerful, the 630 represents J2 'know-how' at its most energy-efficient.  The new J2 630 is user-upgradeable and virtually maintenance-free.  This fanless machine offers silent performance, superior heat dissipation and uses only 35 watts of power!  A choice of hard drives or Solid State drives further increases the machine's durability.

Boyd concludes: "The result of our development is to put total hardware management in the hands of the client not of the suppler, offering them exceptional energy-efficiency, reliability, cost-effectiveness and the longest product life in POS today."