Are you looking for fast android emulator?

After few years break back to mobile technologies again. Word of mobile development has changed a lot and at fast peace. I was feeling excited to work on Android again, however my excitement didn’t last long when I launched my application in emulator.

I was using default emulator provided by android SDK and to my goodness it was taking a long time.

5 min, 10 mins , 15 mins..Went for a coffee break …came back….but emulator was still loading.

Finally I decided to look on internet for a solution and I came across Genymotion emulator. Genymoyion is a commercial product from Genymobile which provides android emulator that is pretty fast and can be easily integrated with Eclipse and Android studio. Below are main feature

•  Plugins for android studio and eclipse. Compatible with Android SDK tools
•  High performance
•  Easy integration with testing and continuous integration server.
•  Powerful features: GPS, Battery, Screencast, Network quality and performance, Call interruption, SMS emulation etc.
•  available for Windows, Mac and Linux
•  Basic version for free with premium license which adds more features to the emulator

Let’s see how to use genymotion with android studio and emulator

Installing Genymotion on windows

1. Got to genymotion site https://www.genymotion.com/#!/download and sign up
2. There are two options to download one with virtual box and one without virtual box.For just emulator we will opt for option 2 i.e without virtual box. Go to link https://www.genymotion.com/#!/download/freemium/windows/withoutVirtualBox

3. Now run the downloaded genymotion-x.x.x.exe and install the Genymotion on your PC.
4. Then launch Genymotion and login with your Username and Password.

5. Then select a device from the list and click next.

6. It will create a new virtual device.

Integrating with android studio

1. Go to File->Settings->Plugins
2. Search for Genymotion

4. If not displayed click on Browse link shown in above image.

5.It will display the plugin

5. Click on Install plugin button.

6. Restart android studio once plugin is installed

7. When you click on device manager button

For first time it will ask for path where Genymotion is installed

8. Once this path is set you can launch Genymotion device manager displayed below.

9. Using this device manager you can launch emulator

Integrating with eclipse

1. Select Help->Install New Software.
2. Enter the URL http://plugins.genymotion.com/eclipse and press Enter.
3. Genymotion Eclipse Tools will be shown, select it and click next.

4.  Genymotion Eclipse Plug-in will be downloaded and installed.

5. Now restart Eclipse IDE the plug-in will be active.

That’s it. You are ready to use genymotion now.