Performance with HAXM has been fantastic for a while. So no, it doesn't need a simulator. It doesn't need that at all. Android emulator has improved massively

Performance with HAXM has been fantastic for a while. So no, it doesn't need a simulator. It doesn't need that at all. Android emulator has improved massively over the past few years, you might want to go take an actual look at it. Even has quite a few features missing from iOS's simulator, too, like camera scene emulation.