There are many reasons why you may want to use an Android emulator on a Windows PC, and fortunately since the popularity of Android has skyrocketed, there are many great choices to pick from. In this article, we will list what we think are the top Android emulators for Android. Read on to find out our favorite picks, and learn how to download them to try our for yourself.
BlueStacks
BlueStacks is perhaps one of the top Android emulators for Windows, and it is definitely one of the most well known emulators out there. BlueStacks has been in development for a pretty long time, and because of this the end user experience is pretty refined by now. As with all emulators, BlueStacks isn’t perfect, but it is pretty close to it. The main purpose of Bluestacks is to bring mobile games to the desktop, so performance whilst playing games is fairly smooth, and all other functions are on-par too. You can download BlueStacks from the official website.
YouWave
YouWave is a high performance Android emulator that exchanges a fancy GUI for a more streamlined and lag-free experience. YouWave doesn’t look as nice as some of the other top Android emulators for Windows, but it could possibly be the best bet for those with limited PC hardware. YouWave also has it’s own website from where the emulator can be downloaded from.
Eclipse Android Emulator
If you’re looking into developing your own Android apps, you are going to need to download the Android SDK along with Eclipse an the Java runtime environment. Inside the Android SDK, there is a built-in Android emulator that allows you to view your app in-progress. The Eclipse Android Emulator has performance issues and it’s certainly not built well for running a full instance of Android like the other top Android emulators for Windows, but it is perfect for debugging and app development.
Jar of Beans
Jar of Beans is another Android emulator aimed towards app developers. Whilst it can handle itself as a standalone Android emulator fairly well, it is best suited for testing applications and .apk files. The Jar of Beans emulator was developed by XDA Developer member Unrealmanu and can be found in the corresponding XDA software thread.
GenyMotion
GenyMotion is a perfect Android emulator for app developers who want to really put things to the test. GenyMotion manages to deal with high-end performance tasks fairly well, similarly to other top Android emulators for Windows like BlueStacks and YouWave, but it’s range of features aimed for supporting app development make it an excellent first choice for over 1 million Android developers.
Hopefully you have found your favorite software within our top Android emulators for Windows; each one has their own pro’s and cons, but we suggest picking BlueStacks or YouWave for general Android usage, and either Jar of Beans, the Android SDK emulator or GenyMotion for app development.