Turn old Android phone into portable gaming device for my kids?

[Oj467]

So I upgraded from my Droid X to an Galaxy Nexus.

I have a perfectly good - freshly sbf'd Droid X that none of my family wants or needs so I'm thinking it could be a decent portable gaming device for my boys when we travel. Just toss it in the Otterbox and let em have at it.

I always see the iPhone folks talk about giving their kids their old iPhones to use as an iTouch and I'm thinking I'd like to do that with my DX if it's feasible.

I'm just not sure it would work as well. Can I simply create a new gmail acct to register it at when going thru the setup we we can download some free games from the Market? What about the phone activation process - can I just skip that?

Thanks for any suggestions.

 

[kwknott]

Re: Turn old Android phone into portable gaming device for my kid

My step son has an older Android phone that was off his Dad's Verizon account. He just set up a Google account and used WIFI to download stuff from Android Market. It should work fine this way without reactivating on another number. When not using WIFI I would put it in airplane mode so it's not trying to use the Cellular Network, not that it can since you will have removed it from your account. Saves your battery for actually playing game, music, etc.

 

[mamawM]

Re: Turn old Android phone into portable gaming device for my kid

my grandkids use my eris all the time. just put it in airplane mode. since it's no longer activated on verizion's end they can't make calls. i did not factory reset, i just uninstalled any programs that i didn't want them to have access to. you can still download via wifi any games from the market with your google market account. i only put the old phone in wifi mode when i'm going to download a new game for them.

 

[Jsmokey]

Re: Turn old Android phone into portable gaming device for my kid

There was actually a captivate dev who did something along the lines of what you are talking about, he went through and pulled all the dialer/phone related files and did alot of work getting it all working together correctly and get a nice looking ui that didnt have all the phone related bits in the quick panel etc.

Its basically just taking what the previous posts said to another level that gets rid of needing to use airplane mode and turns it into a pocket sized gaming/media device. It really isn't a terribly hard mod to pull off and only requires basic modding knowledge and one of the many lists of the apk files found on the internet to know what to take out and what to leave in. Anyways just thought I'd throw that little tidbit of info out for ya just in case you don't mind tackling a small side project during your free time but if you don't feel like tackling something like that, or you don't already have root and the other necessities needed to flash custom firmware the above would be more than enough to get what you are looking for. If you don't mind spending a couple bucks you can also get the switch pro app from the market that has settings for airplane mode that will only disable the data network but still let you use wifi so you don't need to switch it on and off all the time when you need to get on wifi.

 

[baseballfanz]

Heck put GrooveIP on it and make calls if you have wifi. GrooveIP use a Google voice number you can hey for free. I have an old Android that is use just for that.
Let my little baby play with it and we make calls as need so we don't cut too much into our minutes on the cell account.

 

[Probaholic1]

Re: Turn old Android phone into portable gaming device for my kid

What I would do is fairly simple just disable mobile networks and data from the menu, download a launcher that will let you hid all the phone related apps and such. Such as LauncherPro, and do it that way

 

[Devinator]

Re: Turn old Android phone into portable gaming device for my kid

What I would do is fairly simple just disable mobile networks and data from the menu, download a launcher that will let you hid all the phone related apps and such. Such as LauncherPro, and do it that way

Yea, this'll probably work best. I mean, sure, they wont be able to do anything because it wont really be an active phone anymore, but, why not play it safe and set up the phone the way you want it for them. I'm not sure how old they are, but, I would assume you'd want to exhibit some level of control. So, going this route will allow you to do so. Good for you for using an old device in this fashion instead of trashing/recycling it.