Jason,
The biggest thing to consider when developing for Android is that every device is different. With iOS we basically have a couple flavors to choose from, iPad 1, iPad 2, iPad 3, iPhone 3GS, iPhone 4, and iPhone 4S, and pretty much all of them can be counted on to be running the same version of iOS for the moment. With Android you don't get things this easy. There are versions of OS to consider, Android 2.2, 2.3, 3.0, 3.2, 4.0, etc. There are hardware considerations to be made because each android device can have different screen pixel density, sizes, etc. Each can have different graphics cards with different abilities. Each can have vastly different amounts of ram, disk space, cameras, no cameras, and other hardware differences. This is why most devices on Android have their own "store" to weed out things that they know won't work on it. We test on nearly 20 phones and tablets here just in hopes that we get a good chunk of the market working as expected when we release. What you test on really depends a lot on what type of app you are developing, and how big of a market you are aiming for. Best recommendations are don't try for anything under Android 2.3, and stay away from devices that don't let you access the Google Play store. Some exceptions to that are of course the Kindle Fire and B&N Nook, both of which restrict you to their store, but are heavy players in the market and worth building for is you are looking for mass market. If you are looking for cheap, my suggestion is to look for refurb devices, for example we often get a variety of test devices from Fry's Electronics, the electronics supervisor gives us a call when they have some refurbs in that we can get for a steal. This lets us have many devices to test with in all flavors of OS version and hardware capabilities. Sincerely, Andrew Taylor Chief Technology Officer Satori Tech Solutions, Inc. Stop asking why you can't, and start asking "What else is possible?" <http://www.satoritechsolutions.com/> www.satoritechsolutions.com From: [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Jason Awbrey Sent: Monday, June 25, 2012 8:47 PM To: Discussions related to Mono for Android Subject: [mono-android] recommendations for test device Any recommendations for an inexpensive Android device to use for testing with M4A? My focus so far has been on iOS/MT, so I'm very unfamiliar with the Android landscape and choice of devices. Alternately, are there any particular devices you wouldn't touch if they were given away for free, wrapped in a $100 bill? thanks - Jason
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