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What Android phone should I get to develop with?

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  • 10-08-2013 12:40am
    #1
    a fat guy
    Registered Users Posts: 800 ✭✭✭


    Topic title says it all. In a similar vein to the chap looking for tablet advice, I'm looking for advice on getting an Android phone.

    I understand that the Android version affects what it can run. Is this updated on every phone with every upgrade?

    I'd use the phone for everyday stuff too as well, but I'd love to have something portable that I can develop for. It's one of the reasons that I love making Android stuff to be honest!

    So what would be the best way to go about this?


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    #2
    ozmo
    Registered Users Posts: 3,867 ✭✭✭ozmo


    I did some development on the Galaxy Note 2 I got a lend of. Nice big screen and nice and fast to upload and debug.

    There is a emulator in the free android sdk of course, you could start with that - but i didnt have much success with it - way too slow and blue screened the pc very often (incompatibility with my graphics card maybe)

    “Roll it back”



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    #3
    a fat guy
    Registered Users Posts: 800 ✭✭✭a fat guy


    I'm already doing some development on Android using Eclipse, should've mentioned that actually!

    The main thing I want the phone for is to run my own apps on it.

    I'm making an application now, and I'm getting nothing out of the camera activity I made because obviously an emulator isn't going to have a camera. I figured installing it on a real phone would be handy, and seeing the app working on a real phone would motivate me.

    I think that free emulator you're talking about is the one made by the Android developers themselves, correct? It's not meant to be great, whatever it's called.


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    #4
    IrishStuff09
    Registered Users Posts: 813 ✭✭✭IrishStuff09


    a fat guy wrote: »
    I'm already doing some development on Android using Eclipse, should've mentioned that actually!

    The main thing I want the phone for is to run my own apps on it.

    I'm making an application now, and I'm getting nothing out of the camera activity I made because obviously an emulator isn't going to have a camera. I figured installing it on a real phone would be handy, and seeing the app working on a real phone would motivate me.

    I think that free emulator you're talking about is the one made by the Android developers themselves, correct? It's not meant to be great, whatever it's called.

    The emulator in the SDK isn't great really, quite slow. However there is another Android emulator which runs smoothly. Mightn't be great for development but it has the Play Store and will let you run your apps without lag. It's called BlueStacks, link: http://www.bluestacks.com/bstk-download-success-2.htm

    For developing there are plenty of phones out there, depends on your budget, the Nexus 4 by Google would be a good pick and you'll be guaranteed updates for the next few years at least.

    - Shane


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    #5
    Amirani
    Moderators, Society & Culture Moderators Posts: 12,524 Mod ✭✭✭✭Amirani


    Something that could run 4.3 anyway would be a given.


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    #6
    Graham
    Moderators, Society & Culture Moderators Posts: 17,642 Mod ✭✭✭✭Graham


    I went for a Nexus 4 in the end, main reasons being:

    no waiting for a carrier/manufacturer to release O/S updates (if they even decide to issue an update)
    no bloatware/crapps


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    #7
    ChRoMe
    Registered Users Posts: 2,021 ✭✭✭ChRoMe


    Graham wrote: »
    I went for a Nexus 4 in the end, main reasons being:

    no waiting for a carrier/manufacturer to release O/S updates (if they even decide to issue an update)
    no bloatware/crapps

    Good choice, its always best to go with whatever Google's "Offical" android handset is at the time.


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    #8
    aperture_nuig
    Registered Users Posts: 930 ✭✭✭aperture_nuig


    I use this:
    http://www.genymotion.com/
    along with a physical device. The genymotion emulator is built on Oracle Virtualbox, and is very fast. An emulator is never going to be as good as a physical device, but I have found the genymotion emu excellent.


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    #9
    Atomic Pineapple
    Registered Users Posts: 18,272 ✭✭✭✭Atomic Pineapple


    aperture_nuig wrote: »
    I use this:
    http://www.genymotion.com/
    along with a physical device. The genymotion emulator is built on Oracle Virtualbox, and is very fast. An emulator is never going to be as good as a physical device, but I have found the genymotion emu excellent.

    That looks good, is there a cost involved at all before I sign up?


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    #10
    aperture_nuig
    Registered Users Posts: 930 ✭✭✭aperture_nuig


    Atomic Pineapple wrote: »
    That looks good, is there a cost involved at all before I sign up?

    Nope, I thought that too, but you just sign up with your email and that's it. I haven't even received any spam from them. It comes with some AVD's built in that you can download (all AVDs of Nexus devices, eg galaxy nexus, nexus 7). As I mentioned, it runs on top of virtualbox, so I don't know how that'll play if you already have it installed.


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