Genymotion vs Android Studio

Genymotion takes advantage of OpenGL capable graphics cards allowing it to be one of the fastest Android emulators. The only comparable option is HAXM enabled Android SDK emulator.

Genymotion has plugins for Eclipse and Android Studio allowing you to launch Genymotion right from within those IDEs.

Genymotion is available on Windows, OS X and Linux

Genymotion allows using a webcam connected to a computer as a camera for the emulated device. It can also enable a dummy webcam that will display a genymotion logo in motion.

To use a webcam or set up a dummy, access camera settings panel by pressing ctrl+3 (or ⌘+3), enable the functionality and choose a front-facing and a back-facing camera.

Genymotion has a selection of over 20 virtual devices, including various Google, HTC, LG, Motorola, Samsung and Sony phones and tablets. If a device that's needed is not found in the library, a custom phone or tablet device can be created with RAM, screen size and density adjusted from the wrench menu.

Genymotion offers three ways of deploying an app:

• By dragging and dropping an .apk file on a device (ADB must be installed)
• By running adb install <appname>.apk
• By using a web link from within the emulated device

GPS information, including position, accuracy and bearing, can be used and modified in real time. Ctrl+2 (or ⌘+2) to access GPS settings panel.

Installation is standard and after installing and launching Genymotion you'll have to log in. Once signed in, you can create your virtualized Android device.

Genymotion runs on Oracle Virtual Box, that is bundled with the installation.

In order to enable the functionality:

1. Go to your VirtualBox VM setting / Shared folder tab
2. Add a shared folder with the folder you want to shared, and check the "auto mount" option
3. Start your VM as usual from the Genymotion software
4. Your shared folder is available in the /mnt/shared directory (multiple shared folders are supported)

Genymotion supports Android 2.3, 4.1, 4.2, 4.3 and 4.4 emulation.

A free version is offered to use it with general functionality non-commercially.

Genymotion is a true enterprise grade Android Emulator and a very close competitor to Bluestacks in terms of features and apps compatibility. One of the key differences between Bluestacks and Genymotion is the target users. Genymotion majorly targets app developers while Bluestacks primarily targets app users and gamers.

A custom or random Android ID & Device ID / IMEI / MEID can be set up from the Identifiers pane that can be accessed by clicking ctrl+6 (or ⌘+6). Since IMEI and MEID are often used as device IDs, Genymotion generates number compliant with the GSM 02.16 standard.

A virtual device can be cloned and reset to factory settings quickly.

Multitouch commands can be issued via mouse and keyboard.

Remote control widget allows taking control of an emulated device via a physical one. It forwards multitouch gesture and accelerometer information to the virtual device.

To capture a video or a screenshot, access capture widget by clicking ctrl+4 (or ⌘+4) and clicking either screenshot or screencast. This is especially useful for older device images (before 4.4) where there's no native way of recording.

Each pixel can be set to display using exactly one pixel of your monitor. To enable this functionality click ctrl+r (or ⌘+r).

Genymotion offers multiple network profiles - Wifi, edge, 3G, 4G. Network quality (various delays and packet loss) can be controlled via UI (accessed by clicking ctrl+7 or ⌘+7), Java API or command line.

Android Studio is the software built by Google themselves to be used for Android Development. As such, it's certain that support for it will never drop as long as Android apps are still being developed.

Studio is also the tool that Google recommends using for Android development and it's the IDE that gets updates related to Android first.

Unlike its predecessor, which is based off Eclipse, Android Studio is build on top of Jetbrain's Flagship Java IDE which offers over a number of features. It's also open-source too (Community Edition only).

Layouts are built and can be observed in real time and are automatically updated after every change. You can even see these changes on different screens.

Because it's made by Google to be the tool to be used for Android Development, it's also very easy for Google to add great support for their services in the IDE and make it easier to integrate Google Services into Android applications built with Studio.

Android Studio uses Gradle as the official build tool for projects, moving away from the now outdated Apache Ant.

Gradle is a powerful build tool, especially for Android development with which it's very easy to do things that are otherwise impossible or very hard to do on other build systems, thing like: upgrading the build system without breaking the project itself or allowing you to separately define the development and production versions.

Pushing to the built-in Android emulator can be up to 10 times faster than pushing to a physical device.

Since Android 2.0, Google have been focusing more and more on the IDE's speed, going so far as making it 2-2.5 times faster than older versions.

But the greatest feature when it comes to speed though is the new feature called "Instant Run". This is comparable to writing HTML, where you write the HTML and just refresh te page to see the changes. On mobile though, updating anything would take a lot of time for the system to rebuild.

Instant Run allows developers to build their app once (on physical devices, emulator or both) and as they change their code, AS does hot code swapping where it only updates the parts of the code that have been changed and the developer can see those changes after a second or two.

References are automatically replaced with their real values, so you can easily view which color you are using for example.

Linux, Windows, and Mac are supported.

For graphics-intensive apps or games, Android Studio has a GPU profiler baked in. With this you can see exactly what is happening inside the device when a new image is drawn on the screen.

Since the built-in emulator has Google Play Services like a physical device, you can test a lot of API calls without having to deploy your application to a device.