Sourcing Phones
Sometimes clients ask me from where I get my phones. They imagine there are phone manufacturers keen to send devices to developers. The realities are different - ’spare’ devices are actually more likely to be sent to press/blog authors.
The times I have worked with loan devices they have almost always been prototypes and not very robust. The firmware also often don’t work well which can hinder development. Having said all this, it’s all about getting Nokia, Sony Ericsson, Motorola or whoever interested in your particular project - if they can see some gain themselves from your application and they can see some way of tying it to a forthcoming new phone then you might just get a loan device - even then, they will probably need it back in a few weeks.
As a freelance, some people expect me to have an array of production phones. I hold out buying a particular new phone until it’s needed on a specific project as it can get very expensive, especially as I already have SIMs and just need the phone. There are a few places like One Day Mobile, PhonePlanet and even Play.com that often sell SIM free phones at lower prices than the usual retailers such as Expansys.
For older phones, I often do a search on ebay - after all, the condition of the phone is less relevant if it’s just for development. Buying newer, more expensive phones on ebay is riskier because you get no ongoing guarantee - as I have found out to my detriment.