Test Windows Phone 8 App on actual device

Question

Is it possible to test my windows phone 8 app on an actual device, like Nokia Lumia 820 (NOT Simulator) before submitting to store? How?

(Also I may need to create some applications just for myself, and not for sending to store... :) )

Update: I saw that developers should pay for developer account to install their apps on their phones, but What about WP8?

Answer 1

You can deploy your app from Visual Studio to the developer unlocked device. That means you need to have a Windows Phone Store account registered and the device associated with it. You can have up to 5 devices associated with an account.

Answer 2

You can test your app on any real device, you just need to have developer account to unlock your phone or phones for debugging.
It costs 99$ per year per developer, or you can get it for free if you are student using DreamSpark, or BizSpark, or you have MSDN or TechNet subscription.
How to register your phone for development
Once you have developer account, just start the Windows Phone Developer Registration tool, attach your phone to PC, unlock it and then you can select the Device in your project for debugging.

Answer 3

You can now register one phone without a developer account, as you can see in the prerequisites of registering a phone:

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/windowsphone/develop/ff769508%28v=vs.105%29.aspx

You only need to have a Microsoft account (not a developer account), to which you can register the phone you want to test on. Microsoft also changed the limitations on how many phones you can register with that developer account: they are only three by now. I did not find an official statement on these changes, but they must have been taken quite recently...

After you downloaded the WP 8 SDK from the Microsoft Download Center, go to "All Apps" on your computer and choose "Windows Phone Developer Registration".

Answer 4

You need to have a Windows Phone developer account to deploy and test the App on your Phone.

Answer 5

You need to have a live/outlook account and Windows Phone Developer Registration tool for unlocking the device to install the apps on the device. This tool is installed along with your Windows Phone SDK.

To install the app you need to unlock the device first, for this you need to connect your Windows Phone via USB to system and start the Registration tool. The tool detects the phone and asks you to login into your Microsoft account(live/outlook) , after this step the phone is successfully unlocked.

After unlocking the phone you can use visual studio or Windows Phone Power Tools or Application Deployment tool to install applications on the device.

Previously we need to have a developer account for installation of apps on devices but now a Microsoft Account(live/outlook) is enough for doing so.