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What to keep in mind when developing for Android devices [closed]

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I've created a handful of simple apps for Android using only emulators, but I'm curious about what the best way would be to go about developing/testing for real devices. I'd like to start as soon as possible and basically spending the least amount of money for devices to test on. My main confusion is with the myriad of different Android "flavors(?)" there are out there (stock(Google), Samsung, HTC, LG, etc.). What is the biggest cause of compatibility issues between all of these devices?
Is the biggest issue the fact that all of those devices have their own versions of Android OS and if you don't test on one, the OS may cause issues? Is it the hardware (different screen sizes/ratios, resolutions, CPUs, RAM, SD Card/no SD Card, etc.)?
I basically want to find the cheapest/simplest testing solution for getting started developing. Should I buy as many different hardware spec devices or should I buy as many different Android OS flavor devices?
I know that both are considerations when testing, but which should I keep in mind for maximum testing for the cheapest price?

in my opinion you must have different device in hardware and android version.
for example i have 3.2 inch device with android 2.3.1 and 800MH CPU for testing app on Poor devices also i have 4 inch device with android 4.1 and 2 core CPU and also i have 8 inch device with android 4.4 and 4 core CPU for testing app on tablet.
i think device brand its not important.
you must focus on the screen size for testing UI and also processing power, ram and heap size.
good luck

How can we test android app in all devices? [closed]

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In real world , no can test his App in all android devices available in market.
Is there a tool to test my app to check performance and etc.
Or, What is the best way of testing android apps.
Update:
best way is to create emulators and test it. But we don't know all devices with models.
Can you share your valuable thoughts. Thank you

If you need to test for specific devices, Samsung has a remote test lab, this way you can test real devices virtually and a large variety of devices.
Or else you can go for
http://www.keynotedeviceanywhere.com/mobile-testing.html
http://www.perfectomobile.com/
https://www.lesspainful.com/
Got this answer from Other SO, Just combined some answer.

I would like to answer your question from an automation point of view -
There are some really cool tools in the market to help you perform automated testing for Android, iOS & Windows phones.
My personal favorite of them all will be SeeTest (by Experitest). There are others like FoneMonkey, MonkeyRunner, Meux-Test, Robotium etc.
These tools are very advanced - they provide good reports, have image recognition & cross device support. Suppose you write a automation code for Android App, you can find ways to reuse those for iOS. This will save a lot of your time in SDLC.
All these tools have a CLOUD based testing model also. The way this works - buying and testing across many devices is a costly and a time consuming process. These automation tools - have a remote cloud system, which you can leverage for a fee. They will have almost all the devices that are there in the globally accepted markets. Once you have written your automation test codes, you can run them on any device from their cloud system.
So to test across so many devices, its NOT possible manually - you have to use an automation tool. The automation tools today are building this kind of a framework to capture the QA market.
This is the best way to test an App across a wide variety of phones (like in Android).
I hope this helps.

This may help http://developer.android.com/guide/developing/device.html.
If you're on Windows you will need to install the USB driver. Then, on your Devices tab (Window->Show View->Other->Android->Devices) you should see a new row appear when you connect your device to your workstation with a USB cable (although LG handsets are problematic in my experience).

Google Nexus 4 for Android Development? [closed]

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I want to buy a phone for android development and testing. I know that Galaxy Nexus has good reputation among developers what about new nexus 4?
In Nexus 4 my minimum OS version will be 4.1.2 or 4.2. If I wanted to test previous versions would I need another phone?
If I upgraded nexus 4 to next OS verson (for example android 5.0) I would be able to downgrade it to 4.1. How complicated is to flash ROM on Nexus series?

Overall, using the most recent version of Android for development is the way to go. (E.g.: Pre-honeycomb versions stored raster data of images/bitmaps in native memory, thus the Memory Analyzer Tool, when you searched for memory leaks not showed the actual size of a bitmap leaked, just a few hundreds of bytes.)
On the other hand, vendors are customizing their phones, they have different drivers for example the camera. So testing only on one phone, in some situations might not be enough... I'd advise to have an older phone (with low available memory, pre-honeycomb os), and a newer one...
You should integrate ACRA, or other crash reporter tool, that enables you to track your product out in the wild. Bugsense or similar solutions provide you a nice Web interface, where you can see the different Exceptions that occured in your code for users...
If you don't have access to an actual phone, TestDroid from bitbar.com can provide a solution, as they have a cloud of different android phones (>100) where you can execute your test cases...
As for downgrading, I don't know if that is supported...

But the latest phone you can get. Longevity is better that way. You can test for other phones on the in-built emulators.
Here are some links to help you out:
https://developer.android.com/tools/testing/testing_android.html
https://developer.android.com/tools/testing/index.html
http://www.vogella.com/articles/AndroidTesting/article.html

Android Development Device [closed]

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I'm looking to get a device (phone, tablet, etc.) for developing Android applications. I know I can use the emulator to get me started, but I feel like that will only get me so far along. I'm looking for something reasonably priced, and I don't want a phone contract, data plan, etc. Anyone have any suggestions?

I would recommend either a Nexus One or ADP2 ( you can get via Market once you sign in as developer. ). Other option is ebay. All attendees of google i/o got moto droid as a gift. And several devices are on ebay, priced around 350-400.
I wouldn't buy G1 for a reason i think it close to end of life. I'd also avoid devices alternative homes and ui ( blur, touchwiz, sense ). You want to clean google experience phone.
Advantage of Nexus of Dev phone - you'll have engineered bootloader, which let you to install custom roms and you can get root access which among other things allow you to use awesome tool hierarchyviewer ( from SDK ) on the device .

As a registered Android developer you can get an unlocked phone for $399. However, I am sure if you keep an eye on ebay you can find something that will suit your needs at a cheaper price. I see a bunch of Motorola Droids listed for a little over $300.

While the Nexus One and ADP2 are great because you can load custom builds of Android on them, that doesn't really sound like what you are most interested in. In fact, doing so will preclude you from running the Market application. For application development, you really just need any phone that lets you load non-market applications over ADB. You may want to consider getting a phone that has a keyboard to ensure that it works properly for your application. Finally, take into consideration which version of Android you are targeting. Newer phones run newer versions of Android.

If you plan developing something that might take an advantage of a hardware keyboard, get Motorola Droid/Milestone or a G1 (which you can turn into ADP1). I'm using the latter as my apps are targeted at 1.5+. Nexus One is the other option.

Device for Android development [closed]

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not much of a programming question, but development related still,
I'm starting Android development and have been at it for just a little over a week. So far so go regarding progress, specially for someone who hadn't touched Java in his life (but have good C#, Objective-C, VB.NET and Fortran experience)
As I'm looking into a testing device I'm undecided on the phone to get. I need it to be unlocked, so I'm looking into Dev Phone 2 or Nexus One. The difference being $120~ish in price.
Anyone having one of those and using it for development? which do you consider is the best choice. Is the extra speed and screen in the Nexus One worth it?
I'm targetting SDK 1.6 but down the road I can see myself playing with 2.1.
Any input is appreciated
Regards

Something I learnt today was not to let a developer work on the faster model of mobile device when most of your users have the slower model. If it's good on the faster one, it's not always good on the slower device. I'd get a retail G1 as they can be flashed to all kinds of Android revisions. Plus they'll be cheap.
If you go for the Nexus 1, your apps will look better but only to Nexus 1 owners, mostly!

From what I've heard all Android devices are going to get a bump to some form of 2.1 in the future. The specific feature set of each particular build would depend on the hardware capabilities of the device. Neil makes a good point about speed and polish but with a device like the G1 (which I have and love) you will yourself to be limited by the hardware whereas with the Nexus One you can choose to limit yourself or you can choose to develop Live Wallpapers!
Also, you've asked 7 questions and haven't accepted any answers. If you keep that up you'll soon find that people are less willing to spend the time answering your questions.

If you want a test device go for the g1. If you want a good android phone for everyday use go for the droid or the nexus one.
For development be careful which carrier you buy the phone from, some of them like AT&T will change them to forbid installation of software from unknown source etc. to enforce the market. Those are pretty useless for a developer then.