Phone for Android Development

[Deleted]

Hey guys,

So I start my apprenticeship soon and want to get a phone on contract to test my Android Apps. It needs to run Android 4.0 and needs to be as cheap as possible. Would prefer 1GB of internet. I've looked around and don't know what's good (Never really had a phone) I don't call or text so minutes don't matter.

I'm in England, thanks very much.

[OmniSkribe]

Why don't you simple use emulator? http://developer.android.com/tools/help/emulator.html
This will help you test different hardware/software combinations, that u won't be able to do with one phone.

[Deleted]

my friends all have androids, but actually using the phone is totally different, the touch recognition etc.

[Badpaladin]

my friends all have androids, but actually using the phone is totally different, the touch recognition etc.

The Android emulator has the same touch recognition as a phone. It's still recommended that you test on a physical device, but it's totally possible to develop an application and only test on the emulator.

As far as getting a device, snag one from a year or two ago and put a custom 4.0+ ROM on it from XDA-Developers. I don't know about the UK, but in the states you can pick up one for a budget price. Pretty much anything made in 2011 will have 1GB of RAM, and 512MB is the physical requirement to run 4.0 or 4.1. If you don't really care about using it as a communication device, you can probably even pick up a used device from ebay.

Happy coding! Eclipse IDE with ADT plugin is your friend; hopefully you're not having to program in another IDE for Android development.

[Masark]

The generally recommended device for development is the Galaxy Nexus. The Nexus line is the series of phones that run Google's own idea of Android and will get updates pretty much immediately.

If you're looking for cheaper, pick up a used Nexus S, which is the previous phone in the nexus line and also runs 4.1.

[Deleted]

I would go for the Galaxy S III, purely because it will be the Android phone that has more out in the wild than any others.

This was a chart from 2 months before it was released (May this year):



The GT-I9100 is the Galaxy S II and is in that chart, the most popular device. So far, the Galaxy S III is selling much better than it's predecessor did.

I wouldn't get the Galaxy Nexus purely because fuck all people have them. Ideally, you want to aim for the biggest cross section first and then fix issues from logcats from other devices.

[jmt]

Samsung Galaxy Nexus, hands down.