Evan Schuman's StorefrontBacktalk

Then there are the associates who praise the devices with faint damnation: “It’s big, heavy, slow and confusing at first, but I have to admit all the saved trips to a computer makes it a good thing for me. It may be outdated technology, but I think I am gonna like it.”

That brings up the first dilemma for mobile POS early adopters: There aren’t any well-tested off-the-shelf products that do exactly what they want, so they have to cobble things together themselves.

Home Depot’s device is actually a ruggedized combination smartphone and walkie-talkie from Motorola that was introduced in mid-2008. (It actually looks older than that. When I saw one up close, it reminded me of a PDA from 2005 on steroids.)

By the time Home Depot’s developers created and tested the custom software for it and got the device into associates’ hands last year, it was two years old—an eternity in the smartphone world.

Would a conventional smartphone be a better choice for most retailers? Hardware associates have to deal with concrete floors and piles of heavy product, so a ruggedized device may be a must. For most other retailers, something sleeker and more stylish probably makes more sense—but off-the-shelf devices like the iPhone have their own challenges.

Complaints about the phones themselves go deeper than aesthetics, though. “Phone reception is hit or miss,” one associate wrote. “My department head carries two phones, and turns off the phone portion of the First Phone because he can’t hear. This is his solution to having customers getting mad because he can’t hear them and is constantly asking them to repeat themselves.”

(Unlike some retailers who are considering using mobile phones inside their stores, Home Depot uses voice-over-IP through a Wi-Fi network, so the one problem these associates don’t have is catching a cell-tower signal through layers of concrete and metal.)

And the two-way radio?