The frequent question between Android developers is: Why is the Android emulator slow?

The Android emulator is a very powerful tool that greatly improves the testing capabilities when a real device is not available. It is possible to simulate the front and back camera, sd card, internal storage, 3G network with different speeds and so on.

In real scenarios, using the default Android Emulator Images is a cumbersome process and in many occasions it is not feasible while testing complex Android applications mainly because of its slowness. Instead, developers are forced to use a real device for testing their apps.

In this post I would like to describe you an interesting method that helps to speed up the Android emulator. As a prerequisite, you need an Intel VT enabled system. Continue reading →