PDT's On the Way Out?

Experiments are underway:

• The Chicago Police Department is replacing the bulky, outdated computers that sit in department vehicles with new smartphone technology in one of the city’s most violence-plagued districts, officials announced Wednesday.
  
  The new technology will be installed by the end of the year in department vehicles in the Harrison Police District on the city’s West Side as part of a pilot program.
  
  Officers in the district will be able to quickly access data from police surveillance cameras, ShotSpotter technology, which tracks gunfire, intelligence from district data centers, information from license plate readers and other intelligence on a Samsung phone, police officials said. The officers can use the programs on the phone outside of the vehicle, then dock it into a screen with a keyboard installed into the car to be used to file reports and access the technology on a larger screen. They can also dock the phone into desktops at the district and other vehicles.

Granted, the PDT's are large and bulky. But they have a couple things going for them:

• you can see the screen without glasses
• you can rest a six-pack on the closed lid
• you aren't going to damage the whole system by docking and undocking multiple times a shift

Let's face it - coppers aren't gentle with equipment. But we'll have to see.

Let us know.