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I want to test my android app on a phone. I do not have an android phone so I was going to purchase one. Question, I can get a phone on eBay etc without a contract will this work to test my app? Or must it be an unlocked or rooted phone? Can I install and test my apps on a phone that has not been unlocked and does not nave a contract?
Ordinarily you can develop applications (but not hack on android itself) on any android device intended for the average consumer.
HOWEVER there may be some difficulty in setting up a user account to be able to do anything at all on the device without putting a (compatible?) sim in it.
A little web searching is showing two potential solutions – one which appears to require root is to manually change the settings database and thus skip account setup.
Another is to use the adb command line to get around the no sim message and launch the settings activity to enable wifi and do account setup that way. It doesn’t seem like this should require root.
You might want to make managing to set up a user account a pre-condition for completing the sale, or buy a phone locked to a provider who markets prepaid sims to international visitors.
My guess is if you get an early htc phone like g1 or mytouch or (or google versions adp1, ion, etc) you will be able to get it to work – if it comes to it they aren’t hard to root, and they’d be the cheapest anyway as they are out of date. Later devices and other manufacturers, no idea. Of course if you want to target android 2.2 you need a later device.