A veteran Fernandina Beach, Fla., police officer was ending his patrol one evening. He had just pulled his Panasonic Toughbook from its mount and had placed it on the roof of his vehicle. Then a call of armed robbery came over the radio. The officer got back in his car and drove off to assist his fellow officers. About 100 feet down the road, he made a hard left, and the Toughbook slid off the roof of his car and kept going straight while the car went left. The officer knew what happened, but he kept going to the call, where the suspect was apprehended. Afterward, he picked up the computer from the side of the road. The Toughbook's case was seriously scratched by its road trip, but it was still "fully functional," says Capt. Jim Norman.
Norman says it's not just the cost of replacing the computers that makes rugged devices worth the price. He says Fernandina Beach actually attempted to use non-ruggedized laptops a few years ago. The result was machine failure and downtime. Which is why Fernandina Beach PD opted for rugged computers.
Agencies wishing to avoid downtime and the cost of re-installing software into their devices now can choose from a wide variety of makes and models of rugged and semi-rugged machines from a number of different makers. Here's a look at some devices that are probably not 100% cop proof but can take a beating.
Brite
Last year, Brite introduced the Q-Active Dock for the Fujitsu Stylistic Q-704. With a 12.5-inch, full HD display, the Fujitsu Stylistic Q-704 is powered by a Intel Core i7 processor with 8GB of memory and features built-in 4G/LTE and a 256GB solid state SSD drive. The Fujitsu Q series is ruggedized to MIL-STD-810G. Brite says its Q-Active dock for the Fujitsu Q series computers has the smallest footprint in the industry.
www.britecomputers.com
