Mobile Testing: Emulators vs Simulators vs Real Devices

Given the infiltration of mobile apps, web apps, etc. across practically all aspects of our daily lives, a growing number of companies are becoming quite focused on testing. Web and App Testing plays an important part in the overall development process. It involves finding and solving bugs – be it about identifying glitches in navigation, issues with signup forms, breaks in payment processing & more. It ensures that every change does not break the user experience across different devices.

The thorough testing procedure can help generate a variance in the results when performed on different devices. And, it is even greater for testing on mobile devices, given the variety of devices, with different operating systems, browsers and hardware configurations.

It helps analyze and evaluate the app for identifying bugs and shortcomings as well as bench marking the app’s performance. The point of this exercise of mobile testing is to help ensure that the app that is finally brought to the market can live up to customers’ expectations, successfully address customers’ concerns, deliver quality customer experiences, etc.

Time to take a look at different means and mediums of executing mobile testing.

Emulators

Emulators are simply software that can mimic not only a certain device’s software but its hardware as well.

Pros:

• Emulators are mostly open-source and free-to-use solutions
• Eases web app testing
• They make binary translation easier for the machine

Cons:

• They tend to consume a lot of computing power
• Emulators don’t always support all types of apps

Simulators

They are software specially meant for various operating systems. Interestingly though, most simulators are meant for the Apple family of OS platforms, i.e. iOS, macOS, etc.

Pros:

• It is easier to take screenshots of issues
• Like emulators, most simulators are also open-source

Cons:

• It restricts the number of machines one can use for testing mobile apps
• Does not enable testing of functionalities such as battery usage, motion sensors, cellular interrupts, etc.

Real devices

Such testing involves the use of actual mobile handsets to test an app. Real devices-based testing involves the use of multiple models and sizes of devices that can run the given mobile app or web app.

Pros:

• The variety of devices required for such testing helps enable greater functionality for mobile apps
• With real devices testing, one can conduct rigorous performance testing, etc.

Cons:

• Since the company must test every relevant mobile device, real device testing tends to be significantly complex.
• This type of testing is quite expensive

Now, let us compare real devices-, emulators-, and simulator-based testing:

Performance

Real devices can help test performance with a lot more precision and accuracy. Such accuracy, however, is not possible with virtual device testing because emulators and simulators cannot recreate every single aspect of a device.

Speed

When it comes to speed, real device testing wins the round yet again. Mobile app testing with emulators and simulators is significantly slower than testing with real devices.

Cost

This is one department where testing with virtual devices offers an advantage over testing with real devices. You see, with real device-based testing, teams must purchase a lot of different devices. This is not a problem with virtual devices-based testing, of course: they are either completely free or available for use at much cheaper costs.

That about sums up some of the key aspects in which real devices- and virtual devices-based testing differ from each other. As you can see, every one of the aforementioned forms of testing comes with its own set of unique pros and cons. This can understandably make choosing between them a tad difficult, but a close analysis of the project’s requirements against what these types of mobile testing offer can help you make an informed decision. Or you can simply find a trusted mobile testing company to help you out with your testing process.