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Ask HN: What's a good Android phone for casual development?

5 points by mattlong ↗ HN
I unfortunately just ran my Samsung Eternity through the washing machine and it appears to be dead (unless anyone knows any tricks). I'm looking at this as an excuse to upgrade to Android. In addition to using it as an actual phone, I'd want to tinker with developing apps for it as well. Any recommendations?

4 comments

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dminor
I'd say it depends on your tastes and circumstances - do you care what carrier? Do you care about the price? Do you want a physical keyboard?
DanielStraight
Well, I'm looking for similar recommendations, so I'll say for me it's: Verizon, no, yes.
mattlong
Carrier: whatever works well/best in The Valley (just moved here, so I don't know what's good yet) Price: up to $200ish Keyboard: doesn't matter
mbrubeck
I've been working on Android software for the last 14 months. I'm currently using a jailbroken T-Mobile G1 (HTC Dream / Android Dev Phone 1). I've tried out most of the available Android phones.

If I were buying a phone today, I would get one of the Android Dev Phones (which come with root access and the development bootloader) or the Nexus One (which allows you to unlock the bootloader with a user command "fastboot oem unlock"). Then you have full access to the phone, including the ability to install new system images. The Nexus One has much better hardware than the dev phones and doesn't cost much more, so I'd go with that unless you really want a hardware keyboard.

You don't need root access or bootloader access just to develop Android applications, but it's good to have. It means that you can install different versions of Android, including the latest open-source release. (Official updates often lag many months behind the open source releases or the various modded images.)

These are all GSM phones that work with T-Mobile's 3G network; I think all of them will get EDGE-only service on AT&T.

It's also possible to jailbreak most non-developer phones to get root access, but it's not supported and most of the carriers/manufacturers at least try to close jailbreaking vulnerabilities after they are discovered.