What is an Android Emulator?
Before we begin with our list, some of the curious minds must want to know about emulators first. You see the word emulator comes from “emulate” which means to match or imitate. So when we think of an Android emulator, it is a whole replica of the Android OS that is optimized in form of an app that can create the Android environment on your PC. That means that with an emulator, you can easily do everything that you do on your smartphones like play games, edit a video or photo. Overall, Emulators have proven to be a game-changer, there are a lot of good emulators that are being developed by huge teams of developers and in this article, we are going to show you the list of the top 5 best Android emulators for Linux that are available right now.
Best Android Emulators for Linux
Genymotion
Genymotion is one of the best Android emulators for Linux and pretty much everyone agrees to it. It is a paid product but definitely worth its price. It is available in both cloud and desktop versions. If you are a developer and looking for a reliable emulator, this one is it and you should definitely try it out as supports Android Studio IDE, you can use it to test your apps. You also get ADB access which is really good. It also has built-in support for cellular functionalities, Wi-Fi, GPS, and other stuff.
Android-x86
Android-x86 is made for gamers. If you play a lot of games using emulators, this is the best emulator for you. It has its own ISO to boot as standalone Android OS which is quite fascinating. You can run it even using the Live CD option. It gets all the updates on time and when you launch it, by default it has the general Android app launcher UI which you can switch to Windows-like UI as well.
Andro VM
Andro VM is also a product by the same developers who developed Genynotion and it is also one of the most versatile Android emulators out there. The thing that makes it so interesting and different from Genymotion is that it supports offline mode. While Genymotion requires a stable internet connection for smooth operations (such as running games and apps), Andro VM does not require any network connectivity for its operations plus you also get the same features as Genymotion which is a win-win situation.
Anbox
Fairly new, Anbox has taken the market by storm with its versatility and it is a very good emulator as it supports pretty much every app and game that you can possibly imagine. Even if you have a very heavy game, just install it on Anbox and you can run it pretty easily. This is definitely a software special Android emulator. The good thing with this emulator is that you can choose a wide range of Android versions from Cupcake to Oreo which is a very good feature.
AVD (Via Android Studio)
AVD (Android Virtual Device) is also one of the best Android emulators for Linux that is very much optimized for all the developers out there. It emulates an Android device perfectly and it goes very close to a real Android device in terms of capabilities. This one also comes with Android Studio IDE so you can easily develop apps and whatnot. This emulator can also simulate phone calls(incoming) and text messages, and a lot of other things as well. You get direct Google support that makes easy testing of apps and makes debugging easy too. A must-try for developers. So, these were the top 5 best Android emulators for Linux, do try these emulators and let us know which one worked out the best for you.
