Updated September 2011.
To develop on Android, you need many devices for two reasons:
- Screen Size (from 1280x800 to 320x240)
- Hardware platform: GPUs and CPUs
But if you need one, buy a Nexus S (S or One), because it is an official Google Phone. You will have GingerBread (Android 2.3). And you must know that Debug on NDK with Android is bugged. You can't debug easily multi-thread programs (OpenGL). There is a fix in NDK r6 ( or r5) but its needs a Gingerbread phone. For HoneyComb dev (Tablet), you need a Tegra2 device (or OMAP 44x0).
To check your Android games, i recommend to have one device per GPU family at minimum.
So in September 2011, I recommend to have these phones:
- Galaxy S or Nexus S (for PowerVR 540 and Android 2.3.3)
- Galaxy S2 (for Mali 400)
- HTC Sensation or HTC EVO 3D (Andreno 220 + 960x540) or Sony Ericsson Xperia Play (Andreno 205 + GamePad)
and these tablets:
- Motorola Xoom, Acer Iconia, Asus transformer, Galaxy 8.9 or 10.1 (Tegra2 + Honeycomb)
- Archos G9 or Galaxy 7.7 (OMAP 44x0)
But, i check on these devices too:
- HTC Desire HD, Z or S (Andreno 205)
- Nexus One (Andreno 200); I aim framerate > 25fps on this device
Outdated devices:
- Droid (PowerVR 530): GPU is too slow
- A101IT archos (tablet resolution 1024*600) performance is very low
- Spica, Moment, Naos & Taos: OpenGL are so bugged... to be compatible with these devices you should verify each OpenGL command;
- HTC G1, HTC Magic or HTC Hero: if you plan to develop OpenGL ES 1.x, verify on these devices
- Wildfire (small resolutions)
I'm one of developper of Moblox (a featured Android game) and i needed all these phones. If you don't use OpenGL, you can have only one Phone and check with Emulator. For HoneyComb, the emultator is so slow that i recommend a real device.
Ps: i made a collections of OGL 2.0 extensions on this page
ps2: my gpubench can give hints about GPU on Android (results)
Changelog
- September 2011: add tablets, move Droid and A101G8 in outdated devices
- May 2011: move Spica in outdated devices