I hear about a lot of developers getting free devices such as phones and tablets and I'm wondering how you actually get them. I would love to get a free phone or a tablet on which I can do development but I'm one of the unlucky ones it seems.

So have you gotten a free device and if so, what type of device and for what purpose. And also what channels can be pursed to getting free devices for development?

When you're hired by someone who wants you to develop something on an affordable machine they'll probably give you one or more of them. But I didn't hear anything about bailouts (which would be pretty silly considering the sheer number of devs of various kinds).

I guess my question is ambiguous but what I meant was something like Nokia giving out free Lumia's to developers to entice them to develop for Windows Phone. Any developer programs where one might have a favorable chance of getting free stuff.

Well, MSDNAA gives free microsoft products to students (similar to their DreamSpark program), but I never heard of free hardware.