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Visual Studio Emulator for Android
Deploy, test and debug Android apps with our fast, free, and best-of-breed Android emulator
Fast
Validate your app at lightning speed
Wave goodbye to time spent endlessly staring at the Android boot logo. The x86 emulator boots and runs at nearly the speed of a physical device, making debugging a breeze on graphics-intensive, processor-hungry apps. Also, with Hyper-V compatibility you can run the emulator side-by-side with the Windows Phone Emulator and other Hyper-V VMs, cutting the time you spend switching between platforms. Work-From-Home is covered too—unlike other Android emulators, the Visual Studio Emulator for Android works over remote desktop.
Powerful simulations
Mimic real-world conditions with a variety of device sensor simulations
Whether it’s experiencing 10-point multi-touch directly through your touchscreen display or live simulating a drive across the city using real speed limits, the Visual Studio Emulator for Android gets your app immersed into real user environments. The range of sensors, including accelerometer, screen orientation, SD card, battery, multi-touch, GPS, camera, audio, and keyboard help you cut the time and expense of debugging functionality on physical devices.
Device profiles
Device profiles enable you to target a wide range of Android hardware
Devices in the market have a diverse set of Android versions, screen sizes, and other hardware properties, making app testing an expensive headache. Our curated set of device profiles represent the most popular hardware in the market, including devices from Samsung, Motorola, Sony, LG, and more. Run against the latest Android versions, including KitKat and Lollipop. It couldn’t be quicker—install a profile and get running in two clicks.
Work your own way
Install an APK via drag-and-drop or connect to Android tools over ADB
The Visual Studio Emulator for Android fits nicely into your existing Android development environment, with APK and file installation that is as simple as dragging and dropping items on the emulator screen. It also connects to Android Debug Bridge (ADB) so other popular Android development tools such as Eclipse and Android Studio can easily target the emulator.
Best with Visual Studio
Deeply-integrated debugging for cross-platform and Android projects
The Visual Studio Emulator for Android is included when you install Visual Studio to develop for Android, iOS, and Windows—all from one code base using familiar languages such as C#, JavaScript, and C++. Debugging to the emulator is as simple as selecting one of our device profiles from the debug target dropdown and hitting the play button. The Visual Studio Emulator for Android integrates directly into C++ Cross-Platform, Apache Cordova, and Xamarin projects and offers one-click access to your Device Profiles from the Tools menu. You even receive updates to the emulator alongside other Visual Studio extensions in the Notification Hub.
The new standard
No more fighting with complicated, slow, and fragile Android emulators
Take a screenshot of your app for marketing or bug filing. Play back app audio through your computer speakers. Zoom the display to any size. Run graphics-intensive OpenGL ES apps without degraded performance. We’ve thought of what you need as an Android developer and made it easier to do on our emulator than on any other.
Acquire on its own
A free emulator, even when you don’t need Visual Studio on your machine
Java developer using Android Studio or Eclipse with ADT? We’ve got you covered with our standalone installer that you can use to acquire our emulator without Visual Studio. Just open up the Visual Studio Emulator for Android entry in your Start Menu, hit play, and the emulator is ready to debug from any IDE.
