It didn’t take long before people started hacking away at the T-Mobile G1, the first phone to ship with Google’s Android platform, and now it looks like Google wants to make it even easier. Starting today, Google is offering a development version of the G1 that is both SIM and hardware unlocked, meaning no more nagging at T-Mobile and waiting for ages to receive an unlock code. The bootloader on this version also doesn’t restrict the device to officially signed firmware builds.
To nab one of these, you’ll need to register as a developer on the Android Market site, pay the one-time $25.00 registration fee, and slap down $399 big ones for the hardware.
The t-mo account and the t-mo official phone and the possibility of upgrading the device on the t-mo network to newer ones can ensure the most reliable testbed for our applications: the device as the consumer sees it.
While the $399 unlocked phone is definitely an android devs dream, if you are developing serious mainstream apps for the t-mo subscriber crowd, getting the t-mo account and phone is worth the trouble and money. The emulator that ships with the SDK is extremely similar to the real phone in behavior.
399$ is to much.