Rugged Tablet Deployment Reduces IT Costs

By Brian Albright, Field Technologies

A Texas police department saved 30% by switching from rugged laptops to rugged tablets.

Rugged tablets have quickly carved out a niche in the mobile computing space, both as a more durable alternative to consumer-grade tablets in many cases, but also as a cost- and space-saving replacement for existing rugged laptops. The City of Brenham, TX recently reduced its mobile computing costs by 30 percent by replacing its existing fleet of laptops used in city police cruisers with rugged tablets.

The Brenham Police Department is a relatively small but very busy organization, processing more than 30,000 calls annually. Officers use the mobile computers for dispatch and routing, as well as for accessing data (like license plate databases) and writing reports.