Android emulators

Android

Developer	Google
Initial release	Android 1.0 / September 23, 2008
Latest release	Android 17 / June 16, 2026
Emulated	~

This page is about software that emulates Android on other hardware, like desktops.

For emulators that run on Android, see Emulators on Android.

Android is a mobile operating system developed by Google and the Open Handset Alliance. It was originally developed in secret before launching in 2008 as a competitor against Apple's iPhone. While other mobile operating systems have been made throughout the years, none have emerged in terms of market share nearly as much as Android.

Android is like a Linux distribution in that it uses the Linux kernel to facilitate communication with the hardware and manage processes on the system. Unfortunately, the similarities end there, as Android uses an entirely different toolset from standard Linux distributions and no support is given for running it on PCs. (Software development on Android is also nothing like Linux development as apps are compiled into architecture-specific APKs via Java which, like IPA files on iOS, are specially designed Zip files. They may be occasionally coupled with OBB files, see Copy_protection#Bypassing_Copy_Protection section for information about APK+DATA and copy protection situation on Android). While Android can technically run Linux binaries, doing so requires superuser privileges that Android does not provide by default. For many devices, you can expect to see a custom ROM that has an integrated su binary (or a means to install it easily, such as a custom recovery), but not all devices have one.

However, the Linux kernel is flexible enough that it can be emulated well, unlike iOS, older cell phone models, and older Japanese Galapagos mobile phones. While Android natively supports mice, most apps expect users to have a touchscreen, so Android emulators will usually default to emulating touchscreen presses like DS emulation (though it can be less than ideal in many cases). The host's keyboard may often emulate the button controller add-ons, and some emulators support Xbox 360 controllers with some more tweaks.

To run Android apps on your computer, most of the Android emulators employ a two-step approach. First, they set up a virtual environment using hypervisor (and of course support for hardware assisting virtualization such as vt-x/amd-v and virtual gpu adapter such as VirGL). Then, they use custom Android-x86 images and translation layer such as "libhoudini or libndk or Intel BT" to convert instructions from ARM processors (used in phones) to work on your computer's x86 architecture. See #Hardware features supported ABI, API sections and #Enhancements built-in translation layer and VM columns for more information.

Before diving in

• Hardware-assisted virtualization feature must be turned from your BIOS for most of these methods due to performance reasons.
• You need to turn off Hyper-V from Windows Feature panel if Type-2 hypervisor used by the emulator due to conflict issue. Having said that some emulators like BlueStacks provide special Hyper-V build for prevent this issue. Recently, with BlueStacks 5 version 5.20, you can now run BlueStacks with Hyper-V enabled including all instances such as Nougat 32-bit, which will run as intended and no additional changes required.
• If you already have an Android device, we recommend using a mirroring application like "scrcpy" instead of these "emulators".
• If you've got an extra device lying around, you can use Recommended Linux distros#Android instead of these "emulators".

Emulators

Before editing, review the getting involved and recommended pages. See system requirements page for performance demand of the emulators.
See tables for enhancements, hardware features, and Android consoles. Also see PlayStation Mobile..
For more details such as licensing, programming language, emulation method, visit each emulator’s dedicated page.

Name	Platform(s)	Active?	Latest version	License	Compatibility	Recommended? (overall)
PC
ARCVM		✓	N/A	Proprietary	?	~
Android Studio It's an IDE and it includes built-in Android Emulator		✓	Beta and Canary builds 4.0	Source-available	?	~
Genymotion		✓	3.10.0	Proprietary	?	~
Google Play Games		✓	Beta Developer	Proprietary	Only for selected titles (Beta build) ? (Developer build)	~
Trinity		~	git	GPLv2 (Copyleft)	?	~
Waydroid		✓	git Extras script	GPLv3 (Copyleft)	?	~
WSA This shouldn't be confused with WSL or WSL2. See Hypervisor page for WSL2 and Compatibility layer page for WSL.		~	Comes with Windows store WSA patch for Windows 10	?	65.95% 368 out of 558 reported titles	~
Anbox		✗	git	GPLv3 (Copyleft)	?	✗
Andy OS		✓	0.47.226.1096.26	Proprietary	?	✗
ARC Welder (Google Chrome)		✗	ARC 50.5021.602.0	Proprietary	?	✗
ARChon (Google Chrome)		✗	ARC 41.4410.238.0	Source-available	?	✗
BlueStacks		✓	5.22.130	Proprietary	?	✗
Droid4X		✗	0.10.7	Proprietary	?	✗
KoPlayer		✗	2.0.0	Proprietary	?	✗
LDPlayer		✓	4.0.50.3	Proprietary	?	✗
MEmu		✓	9.5.3	Proprietary	?	✗
MuMu		✓	1.1.0.2 1.1.0.5 (v2.3.17) (Chinese Ver)	Proprietary	?	✗
NoxPlayer		✓	7.0.2.7	Proprietary	?	✗
LeapDroid		✗	1.8.0	Proprietary	?	✗
Peak App Player		✗	1.2.5 Beta 2	Proprietary	?	✗
Shashlik		✗	0.9.3	?	?	✗
SmartGaGa		✗	1.1.646	Proprietary	?	✗
Windroy		✗	4.0.3	Proprietary	?	✗
Windroye		✗	2.9.1	Proprietary	?	✗
Xamarin Android Player		✗	0.6.5	Proprietary	?	✗
XePlayer		✗	6.0.10	Proprietary	?	✗
YouWave		✗	5.11	Proprietary	?	✗
Lepton		TBD		TBD	?	TBD
Mobile
Windows Bridge for Android (Project Astoria)		✗	Discontinued ($)	Proprietary	?	✗
Browser
ARC Welder (Google Chrome)		✗	ARC 50.5021.602.0	Proprietary	?	✗
ARChon (Google Chrome)		✗	ARC 41.4410.238.0	Source-available	?	✗

Compatibility layers (...)

Name	Platform(s)	Active?	Latest version	License	Compatibility	Recommended? (overall)
PC
KMRE		?	2.4.6.8	?	?	✗

Comparisons

Emulators

Genymotion

A closed-source Android emulator with lots of hardware features, available for Windows, macOS, and Linux. It's not designed for gaming, but it has decent software compatibility. It's a commercial product though, aimed at software developers and QA teams and you'll need to create an account and download the free non-commercial use license. Except for the pay-to-remove "free for personal use" watermark on the screen, paid builds add features only useful for Android app developers. Unlike other closed-source emulators, Genymotion avoids pre-installing unnecessary apps.

Google Play Games

Not to be confused with the service of the same name, Google Play Games is a PC application that lets you browse, download, and play select mobile games on a Windows desktop or laptop. Use developer build if you want more hardware feature support. Google Play Games is not yet available for Mac. Currently, only bunch of games are available for beta version but Google adding games on a regular basis.

Android Studio built-in emulator device skin demonstration, see #Enhancements

Trinity

Open source Android emulator, basically a repackaged Qemu Android x86 VM. It aims for high performance and it's even faster than Google Play Games emulator. See Guest OS image installation guide for installation. Also see OSDI '22 - Trinity: High-Performance Mobile Emulation through Graphics Projection presentation for more information.

Android Studio

Android Studio is an IDE software based on JetBrains' IntelliJ IDEA. It has built-in Android emulator with AVD (Android Virtual Device) configuration manager. While its built-in emulator (which is literally called as "Android Emulator") may not be the fastest or software compatible (supports lots of OS image though), Android Studio shines as a developer's toolkit, offering seamless integration with coding, debugging, and testing tools for Android smartphones, Android TVs, Wear OS and other Android ecosystem hardware. Recent updates brings new UI aims to reduce complexity, provide easier access to essential features etc. It has built-in plugin manager which you can get Genymotion plugin for further enhance its emulation capabilities. Also you can use adb to debugging with developer version of "Google Play Games" emulator. Supports lots of #Hardware features and #Enhancements. See release notes for built-in "Android Emulator" and Android Studio for more information.

Waydroid

Waydroid runs a full Android system inside a Linux container, giving Android apps direct access to the host kernel. It’s built for Wayland desktops (X11 support is unofficial) and avoids virtualization, unlike emulators. Because it runs Android’s native libraries rather than translating APIs, it provides near‑native performance and can expose host GPU, audio, and peripherals to Android apps.

Lepton

Valve’s fork of Waydroid created for the upcoming Steam Frame VR headset. It uses the same container‑based AOSP runtime but adds Steam integration, VR‑optimized rendering paths, and extra drivers to expose the headset’s sensors. Like Waydroid, it supports sideloading APKs and runs without traditional virtualization. Lepton is intended primarily for games targeting standalone headsets such as Meta Quest, and the Steam store will also add support for publishing APK files.

Anbox

Anbox is a project that aims to run Android applications on Ubuntu distributions. It is in alpha state and only known to work on Ubuntu 16.04. Anbox requires custom kernel modules to run because, unlike other emulators which emulate the whole Linux kernel, this one uses the host system's Linux kernel directly. Development has been succeeded by Waydroid.

BlueStacks

A commercial software with a decent compatibility and performance. It has lots of enhancement and hardware feature support. Newer versions bundled with "BlueStacks X" software and "BlueStacks services" which you can uninstall it afterwards, and you need to uninstall these during each update session unfortunately (BlueStacks Player do not need these apps). It includes Google Apps by default.

MuMu Player

Another closed-source Android emulator. There are three versions of MuMu available

MuMu Player 6

This version of MuMu uses Android 6.0 Marshmallow

MuMu Player 12

This one is based on Android 12 Snow Cone and may have more compatibility with games

MuMu Nebula

This version runs Android 7.0 Nougat and is more suitable for low-end computers

MEmu

Another closed-source Android emulator and also with good compatibility.

LDPlayer

Another closed-source Android emulator and also with good compatibility. When testing games alongside Nox, LDPlayer shows better performance/compatibility with games.

Droid4x

Has good compatibility but forcefully uninstalls VirtualBox, so it cannot co-exist with Genymotion and Xamarin. It's not recommended because it will install hidden background services (xunlei.exe, and Thunder.exe, both by the Chinese company which developed Droid4x) that seed Chinese torrents constantly and are a pain to uninstall or deactivate (in case you've already fallen for it, use Revo Uninstaller).

Windroy

(Without the 'e' suffix) is a fast Android emulator that does not rely on VirtualBox or any similar technology. Compatibility isn't good, though. While the Google Play store can be installed with some tinkering, not many games can be installed (due to not faking device names) and will spawn multiple harmless-yet-annoying app_process.exe crashes. The official site is down since July 2016.

Windroye

(With the 'e' suffix) uses VirtualBox, but still offers better performance than BlueStacks. The Play Store is installed by default and has no stability issues found in Windroy.

Shashlik

A project by KDE that aims to run Android applications on Linux using KDE5 and Qt5 technology. The project is in infancy state and only known to run on latest Kubuntu versions. It lacks ARM processor emulation, so not many games will run. It is, however, known to play Flappy Bird and can show Spotify's login screen. It uses a modified version of QEMU to emulate the Android operating system. The last major update was in March 2016 and seems to be abandoned.

Xamarin Android Player

A newcomer to the Android emulation market. Not much is known about this because it required a minimum $25/month subscription to main Xamarin products. The main Xamarin products were made available for free after the purchase by Microsoft, but Xamarin Android Player was discontinued, as its technology was later incorporated into Visual Studio for Android app development.

Project Astoria

A Microsoft-developed Android emulator for Windows 10 Mobile included in several insider previews. It could run a few applications, though apps that required Google Play Services did not run or had issues. This project was reportedly discontinued in November 2015, and its cancellation was confirmed on February 2016, so the emulator is not included in more recent versions of Windows 10 Mobile.

Android Linux distros

Andy OS

Not recommended because it will install a cryptocurrency miner on your system without asking or informing the user. Just like Genymotion, Andy OS uses VirtualBox, but with a twist: if it detects an installed VirtualBox during installation, it will delete it and will refuse to work.

Compatibility layers

KMRE

KMRE is a compatibility layer and The official solution to run Android applications on computers with Chinese homegrown Phytium/KunPeng ARM processors and NeoKylin Linux operating system, though later also available on x86-64 on Ubuntu Kylin. KMRE is not designed with third-party applications outside its app store and in fact, force installing third-party apps breaks older versions of KMRE. It's an somewhat reasonable solution if you are restricted to working with these kinds of computers due to national security reasons.

See KMRE section for more information.

Enhancements

Please only include recommended emulators in this table. Do not bump or spam GitHub threads, issues, or feature request pages.

Name		ARCVM	Android Studio	Genymotion	Google Play Games	Trinity	Waydroid	WSA
Controls	Turbo button	?	?	?	?	?	?	?
Post-processing	AI-powered filter (Freestyle)	?	?	?	?	?	?	?
	Filters	?	~ Android Studio emulator supports lots of device frame and custom skin (similarly to libretro overlay/bezels). You can get additional skins from various sources (e.g. mingchen's Android Emulator Skins, CREAL's AVD skins), also you can use buttons on these device frames.	~ Similarly to Android Studio, it has device skin capability for better immersion but it's exclusive to users with license registration.	✗	✗	?	✗
	Inverse tone mapping compatible	?	?	?	?	?	?	?
	Post-rendering anti-aliasing (FXAA, TXAA and MLAA/SMAA)	?	✗	✗	✗	✗	?	✗
	Post-rendering scaling (Sharp bilinear, Lanczos and FSR 1)	?	✗	✗	✗	✗	?	✗
	Shader chain	?	✗	✗	✗	✗	?	✗
Quality of life	Automatic updater	?	?	?	?	?	?	?
	Big Picture Mode	?	?	?	?	✗	?	?
	Built-in on-screen control Simulating touch input on display via keyboard or gamepad. This QoL enhancement is crucial for lots of touch input exclusive games. Also you can use third-party apps such as TouchMapper for this.	?	?	?	?	✗	?	?
	Built-in translation layer	?	?	✗ You need to manually install libhoudini translation layer on guest system for Genymotion. See compatibility layer for more info.	✓	✓	?	?
	Built-in, self-contained or integrated virtualization engine Emulators that employ a self-contained hypervisor are a distinct class of virtualization solutions that integrate their own layer directly into the application package similarly to static linking. Unlike emulators that rely on third-party or host operating system (OS) features (Microsoft Hyper-V/WHPX, KVM or Intel's HAXM), these solutions are designed to be functionally independent of the host OS's virtualization stack. On Windows, this is typically achieved for Android emulation by installing a proprietary, kernel-level driver that acts as a hypervisor to manage the virtual machine, bypassing the need for pre-existing host OS'es virtualization stack/feature. This shouldn't be confused with hardware-assisted virtualization (VT-x/AMD-V).	?	✗ Android Studio has Android emulator, which is QEMU-based device-emulation tool. Supports AEHD driver (although its deprecated?), OR WHPX for Windows and KVM for Linux for hardware acceleration.	✗ It has built-in QEMU version which asks for Hyper-V (on Windows) (it's currently in beta), otherwise you need to use "with VirtualBox" builds.	✗ Hyper-V-dependent	✗ It's uses QEMU 5.0 and asks for Hyper-V or obsolete HAXM for hardware acceleration.	?	✗ Hyper-V-dependent
	Command-line options	?	?	✓	?	✓	?	?
	File sharing Similar to "Shared Folder" enhancement for Type-2 hypervisors.	?	?	?	?	?	?	?
	Multiple instances and instance manager	?	?	?	✗	✗	?	?
	On-screen display Showcases messages, controller input state which is useful for speedrunners, performance data, active settings, and various notifications.	?	?	?	?	?	?	?
	Pause/Resume emulation	?	?	?	?	?	?	?
	Per-game profiles	?	?	?	?	?	?	?
	Portable and stealth Useful enhancement feature for non-personal computer use or plug-and-play scenarios. However, the software may still require the necessary prerequisites and dependencies for your operating system if it is not statically linked.	?	✗	✗	✗	✗	?	✗
	Streamable compression format	?	✗	✗	✗	✗	?	✗
TAS features	Fast forward/Turbo speed	?	✗	✗	✗	✗	?	✗
	Macros/Scripts/Lua	?	?	?	?	✗	?	✗
	Movie recording/playback	?	✗	✗	✗	✗	?	✗
	Rewind	?	✗	✗	✗	✗	?	✗
	Save states	?	✗	✗	✗	✗	?	✗
Misc.	Debug features adb support, AGI support, integration with IDE etc.	?	✓	?	✓	?	?	?
	EmuVR support	Exclusive to libretro cores at the moment. So there is no support.
	Netplay	?	✗	✗	✗	✗	?	✗
	Rich Presence (RPC) Allows the emulator to share real-time game session details (e.g., current game title, level, boss, playtime, or custom status) with external applications. This enables features such as displaying what you're playing on your profile, inviting friends to spectate, or triggering join-in-progress functionality where supported.	?	?	?	?	?	?	?
	Screen translator Using optical character recognition (OCR) and other techniques, this feature can provide live translation of in-game text, text-to-speech for visually impaired users, and more — either on demand or automatically.	You can use RetroArch's AI Service or the standalone offline bquenin's Interpreter.
	Variable refresh rate	?	?	?	?	?	?	?

Hardware features

Please only include recommended emulators in this table. Do not bump or spam GitHub threads, issues, or feature request pages.

Name		ARCVM	Android Studio	Genymotion	Google Play Games	Trinity	Waydroid	WSA
Android controls		?	?	✓	?	?	?	?
Baseband		?	?	✓	?	?	?	?
Battery The Battery simulation allows you to test how your application reacts with different battery charge levels and states of charge.		?	✓	✓	?	?	?	?
Biometrics		?	?	✓	?	?	?	?
Bluetooth		?	✓	✗	?	?	?	✗
Camera		?	?	✓	?	?	?	?
Camera and media input injection With this, you can select your host webcams, microphones, videos, images or audio files as the device camera and audio input source.		?	✓	✓	?	?	?	?
Connectivity	Google Cloud Messaging (GCM)	?	?	?	?	?	?	?
	Google Play Games Google Play Services Achievements, Challenges, Leaderboards etc.	?	✓	✓	✓	?	?	?
Controllers		?	?	✓	✓	✗	?	✓
Disk I/O Similarly to disk storage emulation on PC emulators, this allows you to emulate devices with slow internal storage.		?	?	✓	?	?	?	?
External storage		?	?	✓	?	?	?	?
Game Mode		?	?	?	?	?	?	?
GPS		?	✓	✓	?	?	?	?
Home screen This shouldn't be confused with emulator frontend/GUI.		?	✓	✓	? Exclusive to developer builds and it's looking similar to Android 12 tablet home menu launcher ( Demonstration). It's unclear whether this app directly emulates the native home screen or provides an alternative UI/UX with limited features.	✓	?	✗
Keyboard		?	✓	?	✓	✓	?	?
Microphone		?	?	✓	?	?	?	?
Mouse		?	?	✓	✓	?	?	?
Multi-touch		?	?	✓	?	?	?	?
Navigation buttons		?	?	✓	?	?	?	?
Network	Mobile data	?	?	✓	?	?	?	?
	Wi-Fi	?	✓	✓	✓	✓	?	✓
Notifications		?	✓	✓	~	✓	?	✓
Phone		?	?	✓	?	?	?	?
Power button		?	?	✓	?	?	?	?
Screen rotation		?	?	✓	?	?	?	?
Sensors	Accelerometer	?	?	✓	?	?	?	?
	Gyroscope	?	✓	✓	?	?	?	?
	Magnetometer	?	?	✓	?	?	?	?
Sideloading/Installing		?	✓	?	~ Exclusive to developer builds, Demonstration. To use sideloading in the developer builds, you need to use adb install "AppName.apk" command in the Command Prompt.	✓ Use adb to connect then use adb install command.	?	~
USB and USB passthrough		?	✓	✓	?	?	?	?
Volume buttons		?	?	✓	?	?	?	?
OS version
7.1 Nougat (API 25) New JIT Compiler, making for 75 percent faster app installations and a 50 percent reduction in compiled code size. JIT compiler with code profiling to ART, which lets it constantly improve the performance of Android apps as they run. Vulkan 3D rendering API support.		?	✓	✓	✗	✗	?	✗
KitKat (API 19) Supporting Android 4.4 (KitKat) is crucial for emulators due to compatibility and preservation reasons. Older applications and games often rely on the "Dalvik", which isn't present in newer versions and there could be compatibility issues. Android 5.0 (Lollipop) (API 21) introduced the "Android RunTime" (ART), replacing "Dalvik" entirely. Having said that ART is mostly backwards compatible with Dalvik. See these sources for more information: 1, 2, 3.		?	✓	✗	✗	✗	?	✗
Snow Cone (API 31) Android Runtime (ART) module added to the updatable core OS components via Google Play, added functionality to existing modules.		?	✓	✓	✓	✗ It uses android-x86 9.0 64-bit.	?	✗
Supported ABIs
arm64-v8a		?	✓	?	✓	?	?	?
armeabi		armeabi and MIPS support deprecated in libndk translation layer version r16 and removed in r17. But libhoudini translation layer still supports it?
armeabi-v7a Supporting armeabi-v7a ABI is crucial for emulators due to compatibility and preservation reasons. Older applications and games often rely on the ARM 32-bit (Cortex) architecture, which isn't used in newer hardware.		?	✓	?	?	?	?	?
x86		?	✓	?	✓	?	?	?
x86_64		?	✓	?	✓	✓	?	?
Supported APIs
OpenGL ES 1.x Supporting OpenGL ES 1.x is crucial for emulators due to compatibility and preservation reasons.		?	✓	?	?	?	?	?
OpenGL ES 3.x The OpenGL ES 3.x APIs is backwards-compatible with the 2.x APIs which is crucial for emulators due to compatibility and preservation reasons.		?	✓	?	?	✓	?	?
Vulkan 1.3 See Android Baseline 2022 profile and also see Vulkan API versions for several Android releases. Vulkan releases are backward compatible with each other.		?	?	?	?	?	?	?

PlayStation Mobile

Main article: PlayStation Mobile

Android consoles

Because it's possible to fork and create your own Android-based OS, many developers have used Android to power their own commercial consoles. However, as mentioned before, just because it uses Android as a base does not mean they will all work correctly on a standard Android emulator, as they may require specific hardware setup, extra non-standard APIs or frameworks provided by the OS of the console, or extra authentication that relies on the services bundled with the console.

Note: Smart TVs and smart media players/media boxes (e.g. ChromeCast with Google TV, Amazon Fire TV) are not consoles, despite some of them are able to run video games. The distinction is simple: If a device is not designed with gaming as its sole or main purpose, then it's not an Android console. Please do not add that kind of devices that can play video games into this section.

Name	MAME support	ROMs	Description
Atlantis Land Kora	None	None
Clemstation 6.0	None	None	Released in 2018 by Clementoni, the Clemstation is a "multimedia educational console" only sold in Italy that appears to be on a running custom version of Android. Because it's still being sold, it's unknown how games will be made for it and when it will be discontinued. Information on how many units have been sold so far has not been released to the public.
Diyomate X18	None	None
flarePlay	None	None
Fuze Tomahawk F1	None	None	A Chinese console with Nvidia Tegra SoC, similar to Nvidia Shield. Has some heavy-hitting exclusive Android titles such as Hyperdimension Neptunia Re;Birth1 and Dynasty Warriors 8, but eventually flopped.
GPD Mars Gamebox	None	None
GPD XD / XD+	None	None	A foldable handheld console manufactured by Gamepad Digital (GPD).
LeapFrog Epic	None	None
LC Smart Pandora TV Box	None	None
Lexibook LexiBox TV	None	None
Lexibook Playdroid	None	None
Mad Catz Mojo	None	None
MeLE X8	None	None
My Clem Box	None	None	Released in 2018 by Italian toy company Clementoni and sold exclusively in Italy, My Clem Box is an educational console with Wii-like motion controls. Because it's still being sold, it's unknown how games will be made for it and when it will be discontinued. Information on how many units have been sold so far has not been released to the public.
NEO Consoles	None	None	Released in 2017 by Takara Tomy. The NEO Series are educational consoles only sold in Japan and appear to use a custom version of Android. Because it's still being sold, it's unknown how games will be made for it and when it will be discontinued. Information on how many units have been sold so far has not been released to the public.
Nvidia Shield TV	None	None	A console/media box hybrid manufactured by Nvidia. Has a lot of heavy-hitting titles such as Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance, Doom 3, Half-Life 2, etc.
Ouya	None	Yes	A failed microconsole that started from a Kickstarter project. The controller sucks and the games can be found elsewhere. Since the Ouya runs on Android, emulation is technically possible by extracting menu/application APK files and running them in an Android emulator or VM.
PlayJam GameStick	None	None	A tiny console the size of a USB thumb drive.
Phoenix One	None	None	A console/desktop computer hybrid, equipped with Qualcomm 660 SoC, running PhoenixOS which is an Android distro designed for desktop computers. Has a "computer mode" that enables multi-window multitasking and system-wide file manager integration, such as copying & pasting files.
Razer Forge TV	None	None
miniStation	None	None	A console designed by Tencent and manufactured by multiple manufacturers such as Lenovo and Skyworth. Designed to run cellphone games and simple emulators.
Snail Games OBox	None	None
Soomax Sensory (享动体感游戏机)	None	None
TCL T2	None	None
UIS Xtreamer Multi-Console	None	None
UTStarcom DanDan (蛋蛋)	None	None
ZTE FunBox	None	None

GM Android-based

Some General Motors cars are equipped with an in-car entertainment system running on Android.

App Gallery.

Android-specific challenges and limitations

Google apps

Android is open-source, but the Google Play Store has to be licensed from Google in order to incorporate it into a build, including Play Services and many other Google apps. That often means developers pay a fee that can trickle back to the user in some form (either through adware, privacy-invading trackers, or by selling the emulator as a commercial product). Custom ROMs for real Android devices on Android 4 and earlier used to bundle the Google Play Store, but this changed with newer versions. The new method is to install a custom ROM and then install "GApps" through another service like the Open GApps Project.

Architectural differences

Many games often optimize and compile specifically for ARM processors, which prevents them from being executable on x86 CPUs, even when using a project like Android-x86. Some emulators, like BlueStacks, have ARM translation layer by default; in others, like Genymotion, it is possible to install an ARM translation layer manually. See #Hardware features supported ABI section and #Enhancements built-in translation layer section for more information.

Conflict

Many emulators like to uninstall each other for some reason. Droid4x, Andyroid, Genymotion, and Xamarin cannot co-exist on the same machine without modifying their installers, which can be a problem if one game works on only one of these emulators but other games do not. Also keep in mind that you should turn off Hyper-V windows feature if Type-2 hypervisor used for emulator backend due to conflict issue, although some emulators like BlueStacks provide special Hyper-V build for this.

Antitamper protection

In order to reduce cheating, many games refuse to run if they discover that the device has been rooted. If the emulator comes rooted by default, it must be manually unrooted before the game can be played. The rooting method for modern devices is Magisk, which installs itself in the bootloader instead of the system partition, which makes it harder to detect.

Some games take more aggressive measures to detect the presence of Custom ROMs (unofficial firmware) or Android emulators (like the ones listed on this page) in a variety of ways, such as checking for the existence or absence of system files in order to prevent the game from running in any unverified environments. These games are very difficult or plain impossible to play on emulators without resorting to cracked versions of the games.

Android-based Operating Systems

There are many forks of Android; some of these go beyond a custom UI and are instead entirely new OSes that use the Android code in addition to writing their own code, such as Amazon's Fire OS; in some cases these come as compatibility layers on top of an otherwise unrelated OS, such as Windows Subsystem for Android. Depending on how much (and what) new code, features, and APIs were added, will determine the effects they will have on Android emulation but if one thing is for sure, these forks are (most likely) going to cause some emulation issues.

Google Chrome situation

Can open APK files using the ARC Welder extension, though their emulation on PC is average at best. Here's a compatibility list and a dedicated subreddit. Google has announced Play Store for Chrome OS, but it works on a different "container" technology that is embedded in the Chrome OS. In addition, Google has discontinued Google Chrome apps on PC.

Emulator-Specific Issues

BlueStacks

• Can't root the device:

The latest Kingroot's .apk will do the job when loaded inside BlueStacks. It's that simple.

Alternatively, you could use Universal BlueStacks Rooting Software on an existing BlueStacks installation. Before opening it, go to the folder where BlueStacks is installed under Program Files, and run "HD-Quit.exe" once.

Then, from the extracted "BlueStacks RootEZ 32_64", open as administrator "BlueStacks RootEZ.exe". Click "Automatic Detect from Installed Bluestacks", enable "Enlarge System (Root.fs) Size to 400MB", and click "I'm ready for Step 1". A command-line window should appear. Now just wait until "Preparing Complete" appears. Then, click "Go for Step 2" and wait until "Rooting is Complete" appears.

Close the application, and open the "output" folder in the same directory as the extracted application. You should find a newly generated "Root.fs" file. You can use it to replace the existing one under "%programdata%\BlueStacks\Android" (Press Windows+R and go there), but it's recommended to keep a backup of the original in case the new one causes Bluestacks to hang in the loading screen for more than a few minutes.

The package also includes Nova Explorer and Root Launcher. You may verify the rooting status with the "Root Checker" app from Google Play. Considering some apps check for Google Play services for online checks, you can also install "Modded Google Play Store", "Lucky Patcher" and "Magisk".

Andyroid

• Unable To Launch VM Process:

On the taskbar, right-click Andyroid's notification icon, and choose Settings, Advanced, Set Andy Protocol. Type "tcp" and confirm, then launch Andyroid.

Android-x86

• 3D Support is broken on VMWare when using newer kernels:

Kernels > 4.14 with version 8.1 break 3d acceleration in VMWare (see https://groups.google.com/forum/#!searchin/android-x86/4.9%7Csort:date/android-x86/wB65vJnuJiI/ytJaWYWUBwAJ). Use kernel 4.9 with 8.1 instead.

• Setting resolution in VMWare

Pass in a kernel option to grub when booting. Select the boot entry and then press 'e' to edit it, and then 'e' to edit again. Add the kernel option here. For example, to use a video resolution of 1920x1080, add 'video=1920x1080'. Press return to save the changes (for this boot session only), and 'b' to boot (the keys to edit and boot may be different depending on your grub version, there are usually instructions on the grub screen for the requisite keys)

KMRE

• Installing third-party apks

Installing third-party apks requires a dedicated installer kmre-apk-installer. It could be acquired by command sudo apt update && sudo apt install kmre-apk-installer.

Notice that KMRE is still not designed with third-party apps in mind. Installing third-party apps may result in abnormal behaviors of KMRE such as unable to start & stop itself on demand due to clogged-up background processes of third-party apps.

Installing apks inside KMRE is specifically filtered out unless the application running is upgrading itself.

• Receiving a notice that the mobile environment is not running while trying to install third-party apps

Go to app store - mobile apps to trigger the startup process of KMRE. You can see a startup notice in the bottom right corner on the desktop while it's starting up.

• Accessing Android system settings

Execute command startapp com.android.settings in the terminal. Notice that changing system settings is very likely to break KMRE.

• Accessing files of Android

Files in /storage/emulated/0 are mapped to /var/lib/kmre/data/kmre-1000-${LOGNAME}.

Notice that this path contains a hard link to /home. KMRE will filter out file deletion, but not creation and modification. Improper file management in Android could result in data loss in host machine.

As KMRE is not really an emulator/hypervisor, the / and other paths such as /sys on Android doesn't have mappings, but some paths are mapped to /var/lib/kmre/kmre-1000-${LOGNAME}.

See also

• Cellphone emulators - Information on emulators for various feature phone/non-smartphone platforms.
• Emulators on Android - Various emulators on Android OS

External links

• Comparison of mobile operating systems
• Android version history, Android Baseline profiles
• Android Developer
• XDAForums - List of devices: ARMv7, ARMv6, ARMv5
• Early Android devices with OLED and HD Ready display

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