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Does anyone know what kinds of Android devices report no IMEI? Is there a way to programmatically target them? For example, do they tend to be tablets running 3.x?

boo-urns
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1 Answers1

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As I understand IMEI is reported for GSM phones. The rest of devices (CDMA or WiFi based) won't have IMEI.

However, be aware that if you use TelephonyManager.getDeviceId() API (http://developer.android.com/reference/android/telephony/TelephonyManager.html#getDeviceId%28%29) it will return (based on documentation):

Returns the unique device ID, for example, the IMEI for GSM and the MEID or ESN for CDMA phones. Return null if device ID is not available.

If you are interested to find devices which doesn't have both IMEI and MEID or ESN then you should look for any tablet which has WiFi/Bluetooth only connectivity. OS version won't matter.

BTW. Why do you need this? Do you want to test some code on such type of devices?

Victor Ronin
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  • I just wanted to be able to uniquely identify devices. I heard about the IMEI, but it's not very reliable, and I wanted to know what kinds of devices don't report a valid IMEI so that I could decide whether I care about those devices at all. That way, I can use IMEI without worry. – boo-urns Sep 21 '12 at 05:17
  • Got it. Android unique indentification is pain in the ass. Search here on stack overflow, there were number of discussions regarding that. There are some good solutions suitable for some purposes, but there is not good solution which fits all nneds. – Victor Ronin Sep 21 '12 at 16:01
  • You really ought to *not* rely on IMEI to uniquely identify devices as this post on the Android Developer Blog explains: http://android-developers.blogspot.com/2011/03/identifying-app-installations.html – Jay Sidri Mar 19 '13 at 13:32