Do I need an Android Developer Phone to develop applications for the Android platform?

I am beginning to develop a few Android applications and would like to know if I should get the Android Developer Phone. What if I get a normal An开发者_Python百科droid phone? Does the Android Dev Phone provide any benefits other than custom Android builds. Plus I also read somewhere that the Dev Phone "does not enforce signed system images", what would that mean and is this limitation a showstopper?

Thanks for your time with this question.

From: http://developer.android.com/guide/developing/device.html You can use any Android-powered device as an environment for running, debugging, and testing your applications. The tools included in the SDK make it easy to install and run your application on the device each time you compile. You can install your application on the device directly from Eclipse or from the command line. If you don't yet have a device, check with the service providers in your area to determine which Android-powered devices are available.

From: Personal experience. Unless you plan on doing some stuff that requires root, any device will be fine. The SDK provides an Android emulator which is pretty robust, but rather slow. Also having to emulate an SD card can be annoying.

No you do not need to have an Android Dev Phone. I'm pretty sure that any Android Phone can be used for testing/development. Personally I have used two different Android phones (HTC Hero and HTC Evo) and even a Windows Mobile phone that had Android loaded on it.

Depending on what kind of development you are doing you may not want to use your primary phone for development. Personally I do and have not had any problems.

I have not have had any issues with the a "signed system image". I think the "signed system images" is if you want to try loading your own Android system image. If you are just trying to develop an application this should not limit you in any way.

Hope this helps

I'd even argue that the NexusOne is a bad choice since most likely the only owners are developers and a few uber nerds who wanted an unlocked phone. Get a phone that is popular. It's far too expensive to own all the popular phones, but at least you'd own one that is out there in the wild and would give you a taste of what the real world experience is on your app.