The number of Android application users is increasing daily, with this increasing number of users; organizations need to deliver quality applications faster to market to maintain their user base. As the mobile application market is growing, the need for enhanced testing techniques to test mobile applications arises so that end users can get quality applications and make the most out of it
When talking about application quality, testing is the most important thing to achieve that, because without testing it cannot be verified that the application is bug-free and working as expected. Hence to streamline, and improve the overall testing process, and deliver quality applications in the fastest way possible automation testing is the best approach.
Automation testing helps to reduce the risk of human error, improve the accuracy, and reliability of the application, as well as provide faster feedback so that anything in the broken in the code can be quickly fixed.
When we talk about automated mobile application testing, one challenge that comes in the way is getting access to all the latest real mobile devices for testing. This is where Android emulators can help. They are useful resources for testing mobile applications as they can mimic different Android devices, Android operating systems, and interfaces so that testers can use them for testing their Android application.
The emulators come in different categories like Android phones, tablets, wearable, and TV devices; they can be created virtually and used for testing. Additionally, automated mobile tests can also be run using emulators. They represent specific Android devices that can be used as a target platform to run and test Android applications on PCs. This helps in testing the application without needing the real device.
In this article, we have shortlisted some of the best Android emulators for Windows and PCs, that testers can rely on when testing their native Android or web apps. But before moving to that, we will first explore what Android emulators are, and why they are needed. After that, we will also discuss how Android emulators work on PCs, and what are the advantages and limitations of using them. So let’s get started.
What are Android emulators?
Android emulators are application software that is designed to mimic the hardware and software of an Android device for the development, execution, and debugging of Android applications. It can be run on Windows or PCs so that Android-centric applications can be built at the workstation. For example, a Samsung emulator for PC will emulate a Samsung device, its hardware, operating system, and functionality, providing valuable insight into how the app will work on an actual Samsung device.
The main purposes of Android emulators are for playing or testing games. Using Android emulators’ video gamers can play mobile gaming applications on a bigger and far more robust PC screen and enjoy a smooth and clear game-playing experience
Another popular reason to use Android emulators is that it allows running any application available in the Google Play Store. For example, when running an Instagram app in an emulator, testers can upload photos directly from their computer, which is otherwise impossible. This allows developers to ensure their application works as intended before it is released to the end users.
To better know what Android emulators are capable of, let’s learn how they work.
How do Android emulators for PCs work?
An emulator is similar to a physical mobile device that includes all the features that an actual mobile has. They are virtual devices that mimic Android operating system features on Windows and PC. Generally, it runs as an Android program on the computer’s operating system.
When an Android emulator is installed for Windows or PC, it creates a virtual hardware of the guest device, and then translates the guest device’s Application Binary Interface (ABI) into the host device and runs like a program on the computer. It’s like using an Android phone inside the PC, simply by simulating the Android operating on a Windows system without needing a physical device. Additionally, it provides navigation control keys along with touch screen accessibility. The cursor on a virtual device can be used as a finger and perform all the functions including typing, opening applications, swiping, etc.
Advantages of Android emulators for PCs
Android Emulators are the fastest and most efficient way to ensure that the apps work correctly. For gamers, it allows playing games on a larger PC screen and makes the gaming experience more enjoyable and exciting.
Below are some of the other advantages of using an emulator for a PC.
Flexibility
In addition to being able to mimic a variety of devices and Android API levels, the best part of an emulator is that it comes for all kinds of hardware and software like various Android phones, tablets, wearable devices, and Android TV devices, which developers can use based on their need.
Multitasking
Using a phone one can use and interact with one application at a time, but by using an emulator one can run multiple applications simultaneously, like watching a video while chatting, or playing a favorite mobile game.
Speed
The emulators are the best option for the testing needs. Testing an app on the emulator is much faster and easier than testing on a physical device.
For example, Transferring data is faster on a virtual device than to a physical device connected over USB. An emulator allows to drag and drop .apk files to the virtual device from the computer; this enables developers to speed up and improves the efficiency of app testing.
Ability to work with physical sensors
The emulator is also useful when working with physical sensors like the accelerometer. When testing a specific app feature that heavily depends on sensors, it is simpler to configure the settings using the extended controls of the emulator.
Extended battery life
Unlike mobile devices, a desktop computer allows one to keep playing games, browse the internet, change settings, etc, for as long as one wishes to. Hence emulators help to avoid the phone’s battery life restrictions by running Android apps on the computer.
Limitations of using Android emulator for PCs
- One virtual device uses more than 3GB of the entire disc space and it might crash at launch if it does not receive enough disk space.
- The most popular Android chipset requires an ARM v7a Processor, whereas most of the modern PCs or laptops run on Intel x86. For faster emulation, the host and guest CPU architectures must match. Therefore, a computer not equipped with an ARM processor will result in poor emulation.
- Hardware acceleration enables faster performance. However, setting up hardware-acceleration is a complex process even for experienced coders. This as a result sometimes causes a complete system failure
- It sometimes lacks trustworthiness as emulators are often incapable of recognizing the speed and performance of the battery, location, brightness levels, and how they react to certain touch gestures and other hardware-related activities.
- Testing on an emulator is not as accurate as using an actual device.
The best Android emulators for PC and Mac
With the increasing popularity of Android apps, emulating Android on Windows and PCs has never been easy. Many developers and testers are looking for the best Android emulators for games, productivity, and app development.
There are various Android emulators available in the market, and each differs in compatibility, user experience, usage, and pricing. Therefore to help you find the right one that suits the testing needs, we have listed the top Android emulators for Windows and PC.
LambdaTest
LambdaTest is an AI-powered test orchestration and execution platform that helps testers run manual and automation tests of their website and mobile apps at scale, across more than 3000 environments, real devices, browsers, and operating system combinations to help them deliver better and faster.
LambdaTest’s real-time testing provides users with a cloud infrastructure to test their native mobile application, both Android and iOS and websites. They can also simulate different mobile and browser environments and test applications by choosing emulators and simulators from a multitude of configurations as per the testing need.
Some of the key features that LambdaTest provides are-
- For better test coverage it provides a variety of frameworks to choose like Selenium, Cypress Playwright, Puppeteer, etc, for automation testing.
Provide stability in the online environments with the choice of real devices as well as emulators and simulators. - Provide exclusive capabilities like HyperExecute, online Selenium Grid, LT Browser, and Visual Regression to fulfill the tester’s needs of speed, scale, and security.
- Seamless integration with CI/CD tools like Jenkins, Circle CI, GitLab CI, etc.
- Parallel testing and browser compatibility testing.
Android Studio
Android Studio is the best Android emulator for app developers, it is ideal for developing, and testing Android apps because it provides various tools and plugins to test applications efficiently. Android Studio is an IDE developed by Google,and because of Google’s reputation, this emulator is quite trustworthy.
This tool is specifically created for app developers and is not suitable for running games because it doesn’t have the extra support for keyboards that gaming-focused emulators have. It is reliable, has versatile functionality, and can test applications faster than the actual device. It’s also one of the few emulators that can run the latest versions of Android,
This Java-based emulator provides excellent performance and a seamless user interface with useful built-in tools. Using this user can take screenshots while using the system’s programs, expanding their multitasking capabilities. It supported Platforms like Android, Windows, Linux, and Mac operating systems.
Bliss OS
Bliss OS is an open-source and one of the best Android emulators available in the market. Unlike other emulators that just emulate Android devices on PC, Bliss OS has different ways to use and has to be installed as a separate operating system. If one can get through the installation, Bliss can be a moderately versatile option to choose from because it is free and open-source, which is a huge plus.
Some of the features it offers include, different themes and customization choices, high efficiency in execution, and ease of use, with the help of its power-saving features users can lengthen the battery’s life by decreasing its current drain, supported Platforms like Android, Windows, Mac operating system, and Linux.
Bliss can be buggy at times, but otherwise, it worked well. Another thing it lacks is some of the more gamer-centric features that other competitors provide, so they are not better options for gamers. It only allows playing some of the most recent games available but not all.
LDPlayer
LDPlayer is another emulator that offers an ideal Android emulation system. It is mainly gaming-focused but can be used to run other things on it as well.
LDPlayer is easy to set up and use. It just simply requires downloading a file, installing it, opening it, setting it up, and smoothly using it on the AMD-powered PC with an ultra-wide monitor. Though it has fewer bugs than some of its competitors, it doesn’t run perfectly all of the time.
It has enough extra features that make it a good choice like, a toolbar on the right side of the window that lets users quickly take screenshots, record videos, access games and apps from the LD Store or Google Play, multi-touch, ARM support, set up keyboard mapping, real-time battery status and various other tools. It also ensures a seamless, efficient, and responsive user experience for mobile gaming on PC.
ARChon
ArChone is the first Google’s official Android emulator to function in the Google Chrome browser. This streamlined Emulator does not require any tool installation to use, it can directly be installed as a Chrome extension and has the ability to run any Android app as a ChromeOS app, and can be used with other operating systems as well.
This emulator is not the same as other Android emulators used for gaming because it is not for hardcore gaming but works well for other productivity apps.
NoxPlayer
Nox Player is one of the most popular Android emulators for Windows and PCs that can run Android apps on a desktop. It provides a user-friendly interface, is highly customizable, and free to download and use. Nox Player is highly recognized among gamers around the world because the tool works great for games. It provides gamers with an optimal Android gaming experience on their PCs.
One of the major benefits of using NoxPlayer as compared to other Android emulators for Windows and PCs is that it is not entirely tailored for gamers; developers can also use it for testing apps. Using it, users can easily play different games and run numerous programs simultaneously.
It also allows taking screenshots, recording videos, and then playing again with a single click, and doing some other stuff.
Other than the above mentioned there are many other Android emulators available for window and PCs like Ko Player, Memu, GameLoop, etc
Conclusion
In conclusion, it can be said that Android is the most widely used operating system in the world of mobile devices. Therefore testing android mobile applications by getting access to all the available real devices is hard to get, and this is where emulators come into use. Emulators are also needed to run the mobile applications and games on a desktop computer or laptop, and make the PC feel as if using an Android device.