Are questions that involve a recommendation for hardware and software on topic?

Question

The recent question about Point of Sale devices is the focus of this discussion.

Point of sale devices are a combination of hardware (terminals, barcode scanners, printers, etc) and software (the "stuff" that runs on the terminals). While the hardware is important, the software is equally, if not more important.

It is the software that handles the transactions and the "user experience" of the device.

Are such questions that rely on the software as much as the hardware on topic?

Disclaimer: I did add an answer to the question

Answer 1

Hardware like computers, readers, mobile devices, etc do vary in terms of specific software, which most often influence the desired specs and recommendations as a whole.

For example: I might like an e-reader with an Android OS, and some other's preference might be an e-reader with a backlight and no specific requirements for the OS.

So, questions that involve software and hardware recommendations are completely on-topic.

They don't need to be migrated to the Software Recommendations SE, just in case such a doubt arises in the future.

Answer 2

In my humble opinion they are on topic.

The question was focusing on hardware rather than specific software. As you have mentioned software is really important in this case but it still fits our site pretty nice.

Answer 3

I am unconvinced that the audience of users familiar with those sorts of devices will overlap with those with expertise on computer hardware.

Your comment on your answer there is exactly what I expect most answers would be based on, "well I once used this and it worked..."