I was looking to get a wifi-enabled gadget, similar, say, to the iPod Touch, but one that runs Android. It's sole purpose will be to assist me working events, so no phone, no contract, no nothing. Those who follow what's out there, any suggestions?
PS: I thought there was a page somewhere on the wiki but couldn't find it.

If you are okay with the size of a 7" tablet, (compared to a phone form-factor) find someone who has the last-generation Nexus 7 and offer them $100 for it. Update it to 4.3, (which fixes a major issue the N7 had) and from everything I've heard, it'll be a great little device.

Thx, Jordan, appreciated, but I'd rather have something w/ a smaller form factor that I can slip in my pocket.

Your best bet is to buy an android phone with a bad ESN on ebay, then. They don't really make any iPod-sized Android devices that aren't phones, so you'll just need to use a phone that isn't connected to a network. WiFi should still work. You may have to download .apk files for apps through your computer or your non-phone's internet browser if you can't access the Play Store with the device.

I don't know of any reason why you wouldn't be able to access the play
store via WiFi in a android phone without a sim card in it.

A big pro to this plan is you have a random back up phone if your
phone is dead for some reason.

Originally posted by Gareth Pye:

I don't know of any reason why you wouldn't be able to access the play
store via WiFi in a android phone without a sim card in it.

A big pro to this plan is you have a random back up phone if your
phone is dead for some reason.

Oddly enough this doesn't work - I had an old android phone, and without the sim card it wouldn't connect to google play. It could still use some of the other wifi programs, but not google play.

I went to my local AT&T store and asked for help - they gave me a “dead” sim card. Once that was in place, I could easily access google play and use the phone as a wifi only device. Of course, I have AT&T service, so they were very accommodating. If you are with another company, you might want to go to a store run by your company.

Of course, if you have an old phone with an old sim card, you can just use that one - if it's the wrong size, just cut it.

Originally posted by Bernd Buldt:

I'd rather have something w/ a smaller form factor that I can slip in my pocket.

I have a Google Nexus 7 tablet and it fits in the pocket of my slacks and most of my shorts. Jeans are an issue, though.

Looks like I can delete phones from my eBay watch list.

The wonderful Eric Crump has found a spare one he can bring to GenCon :D

On Thu, Aug 1, 2013 at 10:09 AM, Adena Chernosky
<forum-5282-6a82@apps.magicjudges.org> wrote:
> Oddly enough this doesn't work - I had an old android phone, and without the
> sim card it wouldn't connect to google play. It could still use some of the
> other wifi programs, but not google play.
Hrm, just tested this by taking the sim out of my phone and rebooting,
google play was still fine. Also my google foo fails to find
corroboration of your story.

Not calling you a lier, just saying it doesn't appear to be universal
or typical.

I myself am using an old Sony Ericsson X10 without sim card, and it works just fine.
I even enabled the flight mode to avoid any phone connection; I still get to use wifi, just need to manually enable it.

Side benefit of an old phone (even without SIM card) is that you can still
dial 911 (112) at least in the USA and EU.

I know Bernd isn't interested in bigger devices, but just mentioning that the 8 x 5 inch Nook can be booted into the Android OS with a $20 micro SD card from AndroidForNook.com in case that's of use to future readers of this thread. Take out the card and you have a Nook again.

And the wiki page is http://wiki.magicjudges.org/en/w/Handhelds

If you really want an Android WiFi device, there's always the Galaxy Player
4.2 (or 3.6 or 5.0) from Samsung (http://gdgt.com/samsung/galaxy/player/4-2/),
which you might be able to get relatively cheaply on eBay, but only has
Android 4.3 (Honeycomb). Still, it may be what you were looking for.

Thomas Edgar
L1, Stuttgart, Germany.