Develop Reference

Differences Between Android Emulator and Using an Actual Device

I am self teaching my self android and making an app for a mobile application contest. I have all my code working on an emulator with the correct permissions and for a sms text being sent to user specified contacts as well as a link to the google maps position of the user. I will be demonstrating the app on a tablet that only has WIFI and doesn't use cellular data.
My question is will I have to make any additions for the app to be able to be used on this tablet or would it work just as the emulator does?

There are not some ultra big difference between real device and emulator but still there are some :
You can't test onTouch events on Simulator I mean you can do it via mouse clicks but it's not the same
Emulator use your computer CPU ram and things and application will probably run much faster on Emulator then on Real device (You should be aware of that)
Regarding GPS and location you can simulate that on emulator almost the same as on Real Android device
You can't get the real performance result on Emulator because it will ignore all apps running on real device, battery etc...
But generally if app is working correctly on Emulator it should work on Real device also but i suggest testing on Real device if possible.

From #Spirit answer below:
Emulator use your computer CPU ram and things and application will
probably run much faster on Emulator then on Real device (You should
be aware of that)
all of my experience has shown that testing on a real device is actually leaps and bounds FASTER than using any emulator. it's much easier to debug as well.
i really recommend using a real device to test on.

Is deploying/debugging to real phone is faster than emulator on Xamarin?

We're starting exploring Xamarin.Form as a mobile development using Visual Studio 2015 on Surface Pro 2 machine with 8 GB RAM. We found that when we debugged/deployed into Visual Studio Emulator for Android. It takes a bit time to deploy.
I'm just wondering if we have a proper phone ie. Android device or iPhone will this make faster in term of deploying/debugging speed?
I'm appreciated your feedback.
Thanks
Isadewa

Sure when you use real device you are using the phones's cpu , Gpu , ram to run your app but when you try to use your pc every time you are starting a vm that takes resources from your computer and slows it down so you are probably using and ide and you may have some chrome tabs open so if you are that guy who open alot of chrome tabs , launch alot of apps at once defintly debug on your phone.

for sure testing and debuging your application on mobile device is much better for the reasons below:
Emulators are virtual machine that consumes memory and processing power from you computer which makes you computer much slower, which doesn't hapen when you debug on Mobile.
Mobile devices are better when your app is developed to consume and access mobile resources like camera , contact, push notification ... etc.
The only reason that you can make benefit of emulator , if you want to test your application on a specific mobile device and you don't have it for the moment , then I would prefer to configure an emulator with the specific mobile aspects and test my app on it .

Definitely real device debugging fast as compare to emulatore because emulator taking lot of time to launch even though you configure different cpu, and more ram but real device will be feasible for debugging.
Prefer always real devices because its properly give response while debugging.

Is there ANY android emulator that supports microphone input?

So far I haven't been able to find any solution that would allow me to test voice input via microphone on the android emulator.
I have been able to get away during development by limiting my testing to cheap Android phones (sorry, I don't have much money) but now some users complain that my app doesn't work on Android 3 and 4.
So, I am desperately looking for an Android emulator (that can run on Windows 7) to help me test my microphone-based app on various Android versions (did I say fragmentation?)
Is there any android emulator that supports microphone input?
Other suggestions that can utilize the standard Android "emulator"?

As you noted, the live-android (with this HowTo) is outdated, so as far as I can tell, you have only one (free) option that goes up to Android 4: Android x-86 on a USB thumb drive plugged into another netbook or laptop you have.
The only problem I see is that a standard Android USB cable for connecting your debugger will not work because netbooks or laptops don't have a micro USB connector like real Android devices have.

This is an old question so the answers here need updating.
All of the emulators included in the AVD manager (Eclipse/Android Studio) support microphone input now, although the ARM versions don't really have a sample rate that matches reality. The microphone inputs x86 based emulators work really well, but only at 8kHz.

There is a new kid on the block called Buildroid for VirtualBox (formerly VirtualBox-AOSP). This may be what you are looking for.

Thanks to Babu for this solution. Emulator can supports virtual input and record sound same like laptop

Port android / android tv on nokia booklet 3G

is it possible to port android (android tv) on Nokia booklet 3G , i like the booklet hardware (built in 3g modem and hdmi port and overall build) but windows 7 is horrible.
it would be great to have android with android tv port on nokia booklet 3G
any idea how to do?

its possible.
"porting android" for the most part means getting the linux kernel and drivers running on the hardware.
In this case that system is based on an atom cpu /intel graphics so getting it to boot would probably be really easy.
Getting everything working may be hard or easy depending on what components in the thing already have linux drivers and which need to be either adapted from other existing drivers or written fresh.

Its sure possible in most easy way, but experience afterwards is not that rewarding as of now. I tried and its a let down as the Android doesn't seem to be running for Netbooks as of now. Most of the basic things keep on crashing though I liked the looks.
Check out the video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=273L24MLydw
Will post on my blog soon

Can I use any Android Phone for application development?

Can I use any Android Phone for app development? Here in the Philippines, there are many available mobile phones with Android installed. But I want to buy the cheapest phone available (which I think is Samsung i5500 Galaxy 5). Thanks in advance!

You can use any android powered device for development, just make sure it has Development menu option. To check go to Menu -> Settings -> Applications -> Development. If there is somewhat like USB Debugging option you can use device for the development.

Why not use the actual dev kit? There is a complete setup with virtual phone included that you can run as an eclipse plugin.
http://developer.android.com/sdk/index.html

I think any Android platform based phone will be OK.

Yes you can, and I would definitely recommend using a real phone. The emulator is excellent, but somewhat slow for a number of applications that require hardware (OpenGL comes to mind). Even a G1 tends to be faster than the emulator for certain things. If you're creating an app that uses Bluetooth, there's no way to do so on the emulator currently. Konstantin's directions are good for actually setting up the phone.

You need to understand one thing before you buy the phone. What version of Android SDK you will be using for to develop the app. If say, you are developing the app for cupcake and above, you better have a phone with cupcake version. But if you have Froyo phone, you will not be still able to run the app, but some depreciated functions might not be available and your app may crash.

If you want to develop in Windows there is a list of devices available for which the USB drivers work: USB Driver for Windows
If you don't need the GSM part you could also think about using the Archos 5 Internet Tablet, which is a Android powered media player and supports ADB (Android debug bridge) as well