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What phone do experienced Android developers recommend getting? The Droid X, Droid 2, and HTC Incredible are seemingly the most popular ones people are buying i

What phone do experienced Android developers recommend getting? The Droid X, Droid 2, and HTC Incredible are seemingly the most popular ones people are buying in the stores, but I was thinking of getting a Droid 1 or Nexus One for development. The Droid 1 is a bit slower and I think it is best to develop for slower hardware than for faster hardware, and the Nexus One is seemingly the fastest to be updated. Any recommendations?

mitchellhislop 16y ago
Nexus One- It was designed as a hacker phone and a developer phone. I love my Droid, but for developing, the N1 takes the cake.
stanleydrew 16y ago
Nexus one. Hands down the best phone given that carriers can't cripple it or clutter it up with crappy apps or extra branded ui. Use it on T-Mobile with their out-of-contract plans.
ydant 16y ago
Original Droid and you can have updates very soon after N1 gets them thanks to Cyanogen. You also will be working with a bit more limited resources - less memory, and slower processor, which should help save you from writing stuff that will only run well on the N1. The Droid is very capable for foreground processes, but once you start running too much, the memory constraints kick in - this can be useful to test if you rely on a background service. Once the Droid is rooted and has a good recovery image loaded, you can back up and go from "Stock" to some aftermarket ROM for testing a variety of scenarios if needed. I would recommend testing with an HTC Incredible as well - with that, there's the possibility of switching between Stock HTC build and Cyanogen using the bootloader (requires "rooting"). I'm finding quirks with SenseUI (most annoyingly, the keyboard throwing the same event multiple times) that I would have never caught without the device in my hand. Also, keep in mind depending on what you're doing, some built in Vendor app (Verizon, etc) might interfere, so testing on a purely stock Google build phone might cause you to miss something.
grammaton 16y ago
Get an older phone like a mytouch or G1. If you can run it on that, you can run it on anything.
blntechie 16y ago
I have been wondering for very long whether there are VM images for all Android releases including custom ROMs? Can they even be virtualized? Agree that cellular and other features like GPS might not work but at least we can test with different setup right?
gte910h 16y ago
Go for something cheap. The charm if you have tmo is $250. You have to code to OLD versions often to get huge marketshare due to the fragmented install base so the updateability isn't as important as just buying a cheap one every year or so.
campnic 16y ago
I'm going to disagree with most. Don't get the Nexus One if you plan on having customers. Its far to powerful to accurately tell you what experience your typical users will have. I have three, Nexus One, myTouch3g and G1. I find that the myTouch gives me a pretty good representation of a user handset (though mine is currently at 1.6 and nearly 65% of my users seem to be on 2.1+)

mitchellhislop 16y ago

Nexus One- It was designed as a hacker phone and a developer phone. I love my Droid, but for developing, the N1 takes the cake.

stanleydrew 16y ago

Nexus one. Hands down the best phone given that carriers can't cripple it or clutter it up with crappy apps or extra branded ui. Use it on T-Mobile with their out-of-contract plans.

ydant 16y ago

Original Droid and you can have updates very soon after N1 gets them thanks to Cyanogen. You also will be working with a bit more limited resources - less memory, and slower processor, which should help save you from writing stuff that will only run well on the N1. The Droid is very capable for foreground processes, but once you start running too much, the memory constraints kick in - this can be useful to test if you rely on a background service. Once the Droid is rooted and has a good recovery image loaded, you can back up and go from "Stock" to some aftermarket ROM for testing a variety of scenarios if needed. I would recommend testing with an HTC Incredible as well - with that, there's the possibility of switching between Stock HTC build and Cyanogen using the bootloader (requires "rooting"). I'm finding quirks with SenseUI (most annoyingly, the keyboard throwing the same event multiple times) that I would have never caught without the device in my hand. Also, keep in mind depending on what you're doing, some built in Vendor app (Verizon, etc) might interfere, so testing on a purely stock Google build phone might cause you to miss something.

grammaton 16y ago

Get an older phone like a mytouch or G1. If you can run it on that, you can run it on anything.

blntechie 16y ago

I have been wondering for very long whether there are VM images for all Android releases including custom ROMs? Can they even be virtualized? Agree that cellular and other features like GPS might not work but at least we can test with different setup right?

gte910h 16y ago

Go for something cheap. The charm if you have tmo is $250. You have to code to OLD versions often to get huge marketshare due to the fragmented install base so the updateability isn't as important as just buying a cheap one every year or so.

campnic 16y ago

I'm going to disagree with most. Don't get the Nexus One if you plan on having customers. Its far to powerful to accurately tell you what experience your typical users will have. I have three, Nexus One, myTouch3g and G1. I find that the myTouch gives me a pretty good representation of a user handset (though mine is currently at 1.6 and nearly 65% of my users seem to be on 2.1+)