Going Android at Work part 1: The journey begins.

So I decided about two weeks ago that I wanted to begin using an Android tablet for work. Why would I do such a thing?

Two reasons:

1) I really like Android. I’ve only really been using Android for about a year and a half. My first taste was a Barnes and Noble Nook Color that I rooted and flashed to CyanogenMod 7. From there, I got my first smartphone, A Samsung Galaxy S (was a long-time hold out) and earlier this year, sold the Color to raise cash for my Nexus 7. Android has been fun, challenging and rewarding.

2) I’ve been fighting off tendinitis and carpal tunnel syndrome for five years. I’ve managed to keep major pain away, but using a mouse has been really rough on me. It doesn’t matter where I put the device or how I hold it. It just makes me sore.

So two weeks ago, I decided to pair my Nexus 7 with an Apple Bluetooth keyboard that was lying around my office. The results were really pretty great. I found the keyboard to be responsive, and its media keys actually worked. I could toggle my volume, pause and play music tracks and even the keyboard’s expose key produced the multitasking screen, which I could easily navigate without needing to touch the screen.

On top of that I found a few pretty powerful productivity tools. With the stock email client, Dropbox, OfficeSuite Pro 6 and a handful of other apps, I found that I could do a lot of the basics with Android and work mouse free. My arms and wrists felt better than they had in a long time.

The Nexus 7, however, is simply too small to be practical. So I began to scout around for a suitable alternative. Currently there is only one serious alternative — or at least one line of devices that I think offer a really serious alternative: The Asus Transformer line. With a great reputation for keeping their Android versions up to date and a really nice keyboard dock with USB port, card reader and an SD card slot that can handle up to a 128GB card, the Asus was a no-brainer.

I chose the top-of-the-line model, the Infinity tf700 for a number of reasons. While expensive compared to the Transformer Pad tf300, the advantages outweighed the cost savings: Gorilla Glass screen, HD display, and a really solid aluminum build (I tested the tf300′s plastic keyboard in a store and was not impressed with its build quality. There was a notable give to the center of the dock that wasn’t present on the sturdier dock of the tf700). In addition to the touch screen and keyboard dock, the Transformer delivers 12 to 14 hours of battery life, a very nice front facing camera. I’m an editor and journalist by trade, so those features, plus the ability to record interviews easily are an added bonus.

So with my tool in hand as of this writing, I’m going to document on RefuGeeks the broader experience of using an Android device for work. I’m going to evaluate how it works at normal tasks – email, document creation and scheduling. And, I’ll look at how it handles other tasks – photo and video editing, printing and more. I don’t have the expectation that it Android can replace any desktop system, but I will compare its performance to Ubuntu.

Stay tuned for more.