Memphis Police take 1,200 Celio Redflys to the street
I was impressed with the Celio Redfly when it first was released and found it served the purpose it was designed for very well. The Redfly is a nice mobile device that provides instant-on access to data and the web when connected to a smartphone. Check out our video review below for a refresher look at the Redfly.
The Memphis Police were obviously impressed with the Redfly too, as they have picked up 1,200 of them to deploy in the field. The Police Department in Memphis does not use those expensive in-car laptops like some departments; instead, they have been going about their important business with smartphones. This is a perfect fit for the Redfly as those smartphones are turned into a mini-laptop for online activity and report filing. This is no doubt very cost-effective for the Memphis folks and it will be interesting to see how well this works for them.
I really like my Redfly a lot. My only complaints are that the keyboard is pretty small, and particularly the right Shift key (I keep hitting the up arrow instead), and application compatability isn’t very good. Most of the Microsoft applications work very well on it; most other applications do not.
You mention that they are using smartphones for most of their work, do you have any more information on what type of information they are getting on these and what programs they are running? I’m curious if they are getting dispatch call information (call type, caller, location, call details, etc.) or if they are just using these for report writing (also patrol use vs. investigator use.)
If they are getting the right information to those smartphones (license info, pictures, wanted checks) I could see how that could be very useful in the field, then add a larger screen and keyboard to complete the report with the redfly.
Jason