> I was under the impression that since Google started publishing x86 builds of Android the "emulator" is now much more like a simulator (unless you choose to r

> I was under the impression that since Google started publishing x86 builds of Android the "emulator" is now much more like a simulator (unless you choose to run the ARM version, of course). They're both still emulators. The difference is that when using x86 images, it now uses fast, hardware-accelerated virtualization under the right conditions (e.g. HAXM[1]) so it doesn't feel like there's a fat middle layer anymore. Virtualization has come a long way in recent years, and the new emulator reflects that. Of course, there's still major hurdles when emulating different architectures, so ARM emulation is still a pain. [1] https://software.intel.com/en-us/android/articles/intel-hardware-accelerated-execution-manager https://software.intel.com/en-us/android/articles/intel-hard...