My personal views on the UP-820F

I agree there are some things that are infuriating about Sharp machines and programming, and I much prefer the 600/700s to the 800s.
However, I now work somewhere else and there are times I think 'I wish this could do the things the way that a Sharp could'! Of course that works both ways as I can bring my experience to improve things, that's why I was employed by them (I think!).
How about PMing (for want of a better word!) your findings to the trusted advisors?
Have you spoken to Andrew at Sharp about the problems you are having?

This past summer I had my biggest customer upgrade many of their register to the UP-820F. There is nothing like programming the same model 8 hours a day for months to truly understand how much I hate this model. Matter of fact, it bothered so much that I decided to write all the problems with that model just so I wouldn’t spend so much time at night thinking about all the things that bothered me during the day.

Apparently I am up to 21 pages now talking about all the things that bother me about the 820, SHARP and SHARP products in general.

Don’t get me wrong, I am comfortable with and enjoy working with SHARP products but…it is glaringly clear sometimes that the engineers have no real world experience in what dealers and the public want.

I am through and brutally honest about what is wrong with the 820. Now I am getting close to finishing my paper and I looking for a place to post it and let other professionals review my paper to add or disagree with my findings.

I am asking the group, where do you think the best place is to post my review?

If you are a Dealer do you think it is a good idea to come on a forum and post negative comments about a product that you sell.?I dare say there are potential customers that read these posts.

This apparent (your words not mine) 21 page document that outlines all that bothers you about all things SHARP, are you going to post it on your company website or show it to your biggest customer.!!?

Have you approached your SHARP rep with your findings?

If you are spending 8 hours a day for months, then maybe you need to take a different approach to how you setup these machines.

If it bothers you so much why the hell do you sell it?.

Bidgy

A few things to clarify here. First I work for a company as a programmer and I don’t sell it. I program registers and do support calls for other dealers and customers. My company sells a lot of stuff; I just do the SHARP cash registers.

Generally I like my job and there are bad days in any job. What I am saying about the 820 is that this was a poorly thought out machine. Every company at some point makes a dog. SHARP has don’t it before. It happens. If you make too many of them then you go under.

My biggest customer bought it because they needed a special feature on it and they had to swap them out. Most of my complaints in my article are dealer based not so much at the customer end – my job is tougher because of it, not theirs.
Like…the back up master is not a true back up master, limitations on the 13MR3 card reader, the register has to be disconnected from the base to get to the back ports, all the back ports are RJ45 ends, small cash drawer (I like the 700’s 03DW drawer), taking the top case off with clipped plastic, display and print options everywhere in reports, trying to lock down a keyless register (cant properly be done). Get the picture?

I don’t care if they re-write the ROM version; it’s too late now. The molds are made, the production is happening. The 800 series has to be scrapped and a new model has to be designed and designed right. These guy in Japan have no idea how the real world works because they would not have designed a register like this and the sooner they face up to that and release the 900 series with these fixes, then we the programming and support community will be better off.

Salesman sells it because that’s what they have to sell. Its not because its any good, its because they have a warehouse full of them. I can’t get a hold of the local SHARP engineer, he’s never in the office and if I could would he even have influence in Japan. I doubt it.

The only way SHARP gets the message is if they release something and no one buys it. My company still sells a lot of 700’s still because it is more secure. This customer ONLY bought this register because it had one feature they needed. Security on this register is a big headache for them and me. This register is designed for an owner/operator where you can trust yourself.

My 21-page list is my experiences and feedback from other customers and dealers. Its collection of thoughts and problems. I just wrote it down. This is not some therapy thing where I mail it to my self then burn it. No, I am going to make it compete and accurate and post it anomalously somewhere. Because yes, telling the truth could get me fired. And then I will share the links with everybody and see what the feedback is.

Maybe I'm being slow here. What is the feature they're after that it has to be 800s?
I actually quite like the idea of hidden ports. Keeps leads from 'magically' moving themselves.