Comparison of Android Emulator tools

The following table compares the tasks you can perform using the emulator UI, AVD Manager, commonly used command-line startup options, and the Emulator console.The table compares features between different emulator tools that are similar but not necessarily with identical functionality. In the AVD Manager, you can set hardware profile and AVD properties.

To use certain features of the emulator with your apps, you need to enable them through various <uses-feature> elements and manifest permission constants, just as you would on a hardware device.

User interface control Hardware profile property AVD property Command-line startup option Console command
Device hardware
Device type: Phone/Tablet, Wear OS, Android TV
Back, Home, Overview, Menu Input: Has Hardware Buttons (Back/Home/Menu)
Settings: Send keyboard shortcuts to Input: Has Hardware Keyboard Keyboard Input

Directional Pad

Navigation Style: None, D-pad, Trackball, Wheel
Zoom Mode
Battery power
Phone gsm, sms send
Rotate Supported Device States Startup: Orientation rotate
Camera Camera

(can choose webcam)

-camera-back
-camera-front
-webcam-list

Take Screenshot

Settings: Screenshot save location

Orientation
Location
Virtual sensors
Sensors: Accelerometer, Gyroscope, GPS, Proximity Sensor geo
Fingerprint finger
Volume -noaudio

-no-audio

event
Disk Images and Memory
Memory and Storage: SD Card -sdcard
Memory and Storage: Internal Storage
RAM Memory and Storage: RAM -memory
Memory and Storage: VM Heap vm
In the Your Virtual Devices page of the AVD Manager, right-click an AVD and select Wipe Data. -wipe-data
Network
network status
-dns-server
-http-proxy
Network: Latency -netdelay network delay
-netfast
Cellular: Network Type Network: Speed -netspeed network speed
Voice status
Data status
gsm
Signal strength
Settings: Use detected ADB location -port

-ports

redir
-tcpdump network capture start, network capture stop
System
In the System Image page of the AVD Manager, select a system image capable of VM acceleration. -accel
-accel-check
-no-accel
Multi-Core CPU
-engine
Emulated Performance: Graphics — hardware, software, or auto -gpu
-nojni

-no-jni

-selinux {disabled|permissive}
-timezone
-version
UI
Settings: Emulator window theme
Resize Screen Size and

Screen Resolution

window
Round
-no-boot-anim
Default Skin Device Frame and

Custom Skin Definition

-screen {touch|multi-touch|no-touch}
Debug
-debug tags
-debug-tag
-debug-no-tag
-logcat
-show-kernel
-verbose