It's like a PC and cordless phone combined. It does everything a portable data terminal does, but has the benefit that you do not have to keep going back to a PC to transfer data.

Like a cordless phone you can wonder around and the terminal can 'talk' to your base station (i.e. it can send and receive files or data to and from your PC).

The software on these PC's can be as simple or as complex as the software on your desktop business PC.