Official Android SDK Emulator w/HAXM Review

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Review of Official Android SDK Emulator w/HAXM powered by the Slant community.

Google provides an official Android emulator as part of the Android SDK. Basic usage:

Unzip Android SDK tools
Run tools/android update sdk --no-ui
Run tools/android list targets should give you a list of IDs
Run tools/android create avd --name MyAndroid --target android-24
Run tools/emulator -avd MyAndroid
Drag & Drop APK or run platform-tools/adb -e install -r FILE.apk

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What is the best Android Emulator?

What are the best ways to run/emulate Android on a PC?

Pros

Pro
Can simulate complex network environments

Each running instance of the emulator has a separate virtual router allowing complex simulations and setups. Network speed and delay can be simulated either by using presets for various network formats or manually entering desired values. It's even possible to interconnect one AVD to another AVD.

Pro
GPS emulation support

Longitute, latitude and altitude information can be supplied to the device once it's running. NMEA 1083 formatting is optional.

Pro
Allows sending an SMS to the virtual device

You can send an SMS using the command

sms send <senderPhoneNumber> <textmessage>

Pro
SD card emulation support

A disk image can be loaded into the emulator on startup to act as an SD card. This can be done via AVD Manager or mksdcard utility. While the SD card cannot be removed from a running emulator, files can still be moved, copied to and from, and removed from the card. The SD card can be of any size up to 128GB.

Pro
GSM emulated modem allows telephony emulation

Telephony emulation allows simulating incoming calls as well as establishing and terminating data connections. Calls can be accepted, but there's no support for call audio.