Living the Android mobile lifestyle - PART 2


A few days ago I started an interesting topic: Living the Android mobile lifestyle - PART 1 and I clearly indicated that it's very possible to achieve for many people. I provide a simple list of items that one would need to start this quest and I indicated that I would give details on the integration, the gear and how I use it on an everyday basis. I didn't initially think this article could get big, but there it is.

In this part of the article I'll cover the gear I use, the integration that takes place in my mobile lifestyle as an Android user and give you an understanding of how I use it in my daily task, whether this be for work, leisure or everything in between.


If I'm going to be mobile, I need something to carry all this tech around right? What better than a backpack to accomplish that? TYLT provided me with the Energi+Backpack they offer. With this backpack you'll have room for all your tech gadgets for the on the go lifestyle.

The back of the bag offers storage space for a laptop, a keyboard dock and it includes a built-in battery charger which holds 10,400mAh of power to so that you can stay charged up. Within the bag itself, you will have openings that will enable you to wire the entire bag for all the different gadget you may need to charge with the built-in battery charger.

The middle sleeve opening offers perfect room and comfort to slide in a tablet. The front pouch is where everything else is kept. You'll find yourself gifted with a carrying case to store all your cables, accessories and chargers. There's even enough room to pack yourself with clothes for a few days. Trust me, I've done it a few times. With the never ending loads of pockets all over, you can store plenty of items.


While being on the go sometimes you'll notice that you may not always have a power outlet at hand, this is going to become more so evident when you're traveling, at a conference or the dreadful transit back home. This is the reason why portable battery chargers are fun to have. They come in various shapes and capacity.

The backpack I have, already offers 10,400mAh, but that might not be enough depending on certain situation and this is why I'm using an Anker Astro Mini 2nd Gen. The price for this portable stick varies depending on where you buy it. I also make use of a RAVPower Element 10400mAh which comes with a nice $18,99 US tag on Amazon.


Something else to consider, is a portable desktop charger. In the event you are down for a bit, you can quickly charge multiple device and or your batteries for future use and this my friend is an excellent buy. I'm using the RAVPower 36W 4-Port High Speed USB Wall Charger at the cost of $19.99 CA on Amazon.ca. This should help keep you charged up all the time.

I'm not using anything fancy when it comes to my smartphone tech, I'm a Sony Xperia Z2 user on Lollipop 5.1.1. If you fancy looking up the specs you can do it over GSMARENA. Suffice to say that this phone can run anything and everything without lag. You may be wondering why I went for this type of device when it was the top Sony device to have; The answer is pretty simple, it's the integration that Sony offers with many other devices and it's media capability.


Now to the piece of resistance, my Sony Xperia Z2 Tablet is the center of my mobile lifestyle. You may be wondering why? It's a hell of a tablet and it can handle everything that's thrown at it, from office work to gaming with the likes of Implosion which delivers high octane adrenaline. Getting this tablet was a complete fluke as I was simply purchasing a Xperia Z2 smartphone at the time and for no additional cost they were actively giving the tablet version as well at the time.

It's loaded with Snapdragon 801 processor and it's paired with an Adreno 330 for its GPU to deliver a high experience.


The choice to go with the Z2 smartphone came about back in January, I was looking for a new phone and I wanted to upgrade. The Z3 at the time didn't provide anything additional I needed and the price difference at the time was nearly $299,99 and the Tablet was an added bonus.

The Z2 offered everything I needed in a performance smartphone and so this the tablet. In the end the Z2 Tablet replaced the older Samsung Galaxy Tab 2.

What some of you may not know, is that Sony decided to include features natively that you can't do with other devices unless you root. I wanted to experience the stock aspect of my smartphone and Sony enabled me to do so with the features they have.

I can setup my device to have a "share", this will allow it to be seen on the network by other devices on the WIFI. Within the environment I can also throw content to any DLNA enabled device, mirror my phone directly to the TV screen, cast to any device that can receive, create a media server, link the device to my Playstation and more.

When it came to wearable tech, I had 3 points of interest; screen size, round face only and battery. It was a tough choice, I wasn't sure if I was going to buy one or skip it until later. It became clear later on that the Moto360 was the watch I wanted. When it came to looking up the Moto360, a lot of the reviews pointed out that the battery on the watch wasn't that great and people complained about only have it for about 10 hours. I'm actually glad I did grab it, at most times I can get on average about 24 hours worth of usage with this watch.

I mainly use the Moto360 for the notifications, the weather conditions or alerts and I don't make use of the health aspect that it offers. This is something I'd the ability to disable completely. I do use the voice aspect on the Moto360, but quite rarely since there's no real noise cancellation built into it. Often enough the bustling of a café prevents me from doing so.

You can get yourself a Moto360 1st Gen currently at BestBuy for $199.99 CA.

The original Moto360 leather watch strap got old very fast, although very stylish, I recommend TYLT's Moto360 silicon band and at the price point of $29.99 US it's a good deal. I would also include the SteelConnect for the Moto360, as this makes a great addition to the watch to give it more flare. For only $38.00 this could be yours!


Something that is solid and very much recommended to add for any mobile user is a Bluetooth keyboard dock and a Bluetooth mouse. There's no if or buts about this one, it makes doing work much faster than using the on screen keyboard, especially if you have to type documents and to reply to a bunch of emails.

I got to test and play with the TYPE-S keyboard dock from Logitech and I fell in love with this one. Its folio, slim fit style was exactly what I wanted out of a keyboard dock. On a single charge, the keyboard can last up to 6 months before you need to charge it up again. It's auto sleep/wake feature makes using this keyboard a breeze.

 This might put some of you off as it's $99.99 US price for this little baby.

An element I didn't consider up to recently, was a Bluetooth numberpad. I didn't miss until I had a need to work in Excel. You can use the standard number bar at the top of the keyboard, but it was a pain and not as fast I would like. In one of the package I got from a supplier I was reviewing items for had included a Bluetooth numberpad. I have to give a thank you to Satechi for this one, I would never thought about until recently and this made the addition so much better to work with.

This addition to your mobile lifestyle will only cost $29.99 US.

I needed something that would compliment the look and feel of the mobile Android lifestyle I'm going for. What better way to do so, then using the Dell Bluetooth Mouse WM615? It's a very good mouse to have, but it's not for the feint of heart at the cost of $69.83 CA.
We need to be able to tie all of this together, what better than having a Bluetooth headset? Taking calls, listening to music and not disturbing other people around you just makes the experience more enjoyable. This was the next logical step in being on the mobile side of the world. You still want to be able to enjoy yourself and conduct business if you need to. With the latest Plantronics BackBeat Sense I've been able to tie all of this setup together to give me a more focused workspace while being away from work and it looks sexy.

They are excellent for both music and communication. Priced at $219,99 at Canada Computers.

I needed something that had solid sound, great battery, perfect for communicating with people. They offer you the ability to be connected to 2 devices at the same time and it's smart enough to know which unit is being used, whether it be my Z2 smartphone or my Z2 Tablet, allowing the versatility of using either device without having to switch in between. With its 18 hours of battery life this made them an excellent addition.

One more item that doesn't make it on many peoples list, it's an OTG cable. Currently, most smartphone and tablet support the OTG model. This allows me the ability to use devices like, USB storage keys, USB portable HD and other USB devices on my tablet. It also allows me the ability to transfer content to a and from environments that don't support cloud storage or sending or large amount of data over email.


You can get these adopters all over Ebay at the cost of maybe $2. There's really no need to give you links, since they are all over the place.

This was my list of hardware that I carry around with me in the backpack you've seen earlier.

I remember mentioning I would talk about the software I use and how I tie everything together for working, but I think I'll leave this in part 3 of the article.

Spare mouse I had to use, forgot mine before I left for the weekend.

Interested to see what I've got for PART 3? Well, it involves quite a bit of different software that will achieve a lot. I'll be going over office software, communication, tools and even design tools I use to create some of the images I have in some of my posts. I'd definitely get behind Adobe if they released a suite that was made for Android, but in the meantime, there's other tools you can use to achieve similar goals. I guess you'll have to stay tune for more!

Care to comment, share or want to engage me, you can do it via the comment below or on any of the social platforms I follow!

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