Yes, indeed. All android developers have 400 phones (neatly and photogenically arranged on a conference room table, no less).
Look, fragmentation has costs. Outside the core APIs (and especially with hardware-facing interfaces) you need to expect to do some testing. Screens have different resolutions. PVR and Mali have different rendering bugs. Different cameras have different quirks. But to baldly pretend that this requires exhaustive testing on hundreds of devices is just sensationalist nonsense.
I agree. Hundreds of devices is ridiculous. But if you are trying to build an app that must work on as many possible you are still look at 10-20 tablets+phones. It's still very expensive.
Look, fragmentation has costs. Outside the core APIs (and especially with hardware-facing interfaces) you need to expect to do some testing. Screens have different resolutions. PVR and Mali have different rendering bugs. Different cameras have different quirks. But to baldly pretend that this requires exhaustive testing on hundreds of devices is just sensationalist nonsense.