Hi All,
I want to get into trying my hand at Android software development. What is the developer phone in terms of ease of development, debugging features etc. that's out there? It should also be a good phone too, as I'd want to use it as my primary phone.
Thanks, Fred
Any Android phone is going to offer the pretty much the exact developer experience as any other.
If your primary concern is development, get the best phone that matches the lowest API level that you wish your software to support, so you can test with it. Use the emulator to test other API levels.
If your primary concern is having a good phone, get the best phone for you and use the emulator and use the emulator to test other API levels.
For app development, it doesn't really matter which phone you get aside from API levels, for game development, you might want the slowest phone that you intend to support so you are forced to write efficient code.
Geeksphone gives you even root access to the device. Not sure if they ship to US.
Nexus One or any phone that is using the Google experience meaning that the manufacturer did not put custom user-interface on the phone.
Generally it isn't a good idea to use something important like your primary phone as a test kitty.
That being said I'm planning on doing the same stupid thing, so +1. :-)
My feeling at the moment (no pun intended) is to go with the Samsung Moment or Motorolla Droid phone, as they have a hardware keyboard. That may come in handy in a pinch if something goes wrong. Flurin in the comments mentioned that Motorolla has a better track record with providing OS updates, so you may want to keep that in mind if you have a choice of carriers.
Idea 2 would be to go with the Google phone. It has the most up to date version of the OS. The theory here is that if you are shooting at a moving target, it is best to lead the target a bit. However, I'm on the Sprint network, so that isn't an option for me.
it depends on the android version your targeted at. if you want to program for the very latest version and you want a "high end" phone then I'd recommend you the Nexus 1 by Google (android 2.1). I own a Motorola Milestone (the european version of the DROID) and I'm very satisfied (android 2.0).
of course you can get a phone which will give you root access. but unless your want to program on android-core and build a custom firmware you wont need root access.
and if you are afraid of bricking up your phone while developing there's always the android emulator.. ;-)
If you just want to try and decide whether to do something serious or give up, buy the cheapest one. I've got HTC Dream G1 long time ago and I can still use it to try implementing whatever idea I get.
My take on this: If you are developing a sophisticated app, which might take you at least 6 months to develop, aim for a model that runs the latest Android version currently released (2.2 as of today).
The reason: by the time you release your app, older version phones will have a diminished market share.