moredroid79

Hey all! I'm looking into starting developing Android apps and I need advice on what my first dev computer must require. Now, I am just starting out, and I do have a budget of $400 to $500, so it needs to be as basic as possible to fit that budget. I need to know if I should go desktop PC or Laptop...need to know about memory....speed...all that good stuff. I'm trying to purchase this by Christmas or before the new year.

Thanks to all in advance!

mrl

I think most half decent computers will do. Something that will compile the thing is all that's really needed (and can run eclipse fine assuming you'll use it). Personally I'd go with a desktop as you get more for your money, and can easily upgrade at a later date. I don't know if the emulator slows down when you give it a more taxing app to test, but I've tried simple apps with and without opengl 1.0 es (the latest opengl will not work in the emulator) as the main interface, and it seemed to run fine. The emulator is the only possible problem I can see with a cheap setup.

My minimal spec suggestion is just a cheap dual core processor and at least 2GB ram. Also, a large screen or even better 2 large screens would be nice, but of course not essential.

If you need something better depends on what else you will do with the computer, how you intend to create the assets for an app (memory hungry image manipulation apps or more basic for example), how reliant you will be on the emulator, what os you want to run, etc.

JohnLaird

All you really need to develop android apps is Eclipse, a web browser, and a image editing program like Paint.NET or GIMP if you want eye candy. Since Eclipse runs on Java (and by extension a virtual machine) it isn't very picky about hardware (slow but reliable).

Last edited by JohnLaird; December 15th, 2011 at 05:34 PM. Reason: sp