Why You Should Say “No” to Emulators

The mobile market is growing, and nothing can stop its evolution. The diversity of available gadgets is impressive, and manufacturers still surprise us from time to time, creating absolutely new devices. That’s why app developers use emulators sometimes. The thing is that there are too many gadgets to take into consideration, while emulators allow to reduce costs and simplify the process of app testing. But here are several significant reasons to forget about using emulators. So, what is impossible without real devices?
Prediction of real occurrences. Some things simply can’t be tested with emulators. For instance, battery consumption.
Considering ALL user interactions. Scrolling, zooming, and other interactions can differ according to the devices’ touchscreens. So that you won’t be able to test them efficiently with emulators, which won’t give you a true-to-life environment.
Making your users really happy. Mobile app performance testing is a must in case you want to make your users happy (and we hope, you do). Using real devices is a more reliable way to find the bugs, while a simulated environment can provide you with unrealistic and, therefore, useless results.
Guaranteeing consistent outcomes. A few more words about results. The problem is that emulators don’t consider the gadget’s graphics capability, Internet connection, and other factors. That’s why results obtained with emulators can be really different from those ones received with real devices.

Inna Feshchuk: