Best Point-Of-Sale (POS) Thermal Receipt Printers & Cash Drawers?

I'm a few weeks away from opening my new retail shop and the time has come to purchase my point-of-sale (POS) cash register system.

I've already built a mid-line PC (AM3 X2 255, 4GB DDR3, 2x WD 500GB Caviar Black to be set up as RAID1) to run my point-of-sale software (Retail Boss 15.9) and Quickbooks, along with a laser (not CCD) USB price scanning gun.

My question is on cash drawers and thermal receipt printers. Although I'll be using a traditional laser printer for work estimates and reports, I feel a thermal receipt printer (like those used on cash registers at Wal-Mart, CVS and other major retailers) is my best option for printing sale/payment receipts and credit card processing based on speed and paper costs.

I've found a QuickBooks hardware bundle consisting of the cash drawer and thermal printer (new) for about $240; however the cash drawer appears to be made of low quality thin metal.

My other option is to buy a refurbished IBM modular POS cash register for about the same price, ditch the antiquated PC module and use the cash drawer, thermal receipt printer (and possibly the 10.2" monochrome flat screen monitor) from it with the PC I've built. Although the IBM cash drawer and thermal printer use serial (not USB) ports, adding a serial card to the PC I built would not be an issue.

I'm leaning towards the IBM option: Although a used/refurbished system, both the cash drawer and thermal printer appear to be higher grade hardware. In addition, the IBM thermal printer has a slot to insert checks and repair orders to print "For Deposit Only to (name of bank/account #)" or validate payment on the work order. FYI, I researched the IBM; it has printer drivers available for Windows 7.

For those who have worked with point-of-sale PC systems: What are your thoughts on the IBM versus the QuickBooks hardware? Any thoughts would be appreciated. Thanks in advance for your help.

 

So what did you end up doing? Im in the same boat right now.