Testing android without device

[al 2 Likes (Newbie)]

Is there a way to test the android OS + Device type without having an android device?  An emulator that is more than just setting viewport sizes?

 

I have some interactions that work buttery smooth on IOS and work very badly in Android.  I could post a URL, but I'm more interested in seeing if I can do this on my own without the device.

 

In the meantime I am going to attempt to follow the tips in this post, but the only way for me to know if my results were fruitful is to ask my colleague tomorrow at work to yet again open my app and see if it still sucks.  

 

Any help would be appreciated.

 

Thanks,

Andrew

 

 

[Rodrigo 2,662 Likes (Superhero)]

Hi Andrew,

 

In my experience, in terms of performance nothing replaces the actual device, which in basically sucks because everyone would need a ridiculously huge amount of devices in order to make, what we could call a "representative set of tests", to check for performance and rendering.

 

Sure emulators can give you almost the same result the actual device, but you'll be running those apps in a computer with a far more powerful hardware, so is not reliable in terms of performance. That's why I normally rely on Browserstack for rendering issues and for performance I own a low-end and mid-end Android device. So basically if something works ok on the low-end device using Android's native browser(which is quite terrible in terms of performance IMHO) you can safely say that it would work in most devices.

 

Finally, as I said above, Android's native browser is really bad when you compare it with almost any other. I normally get better results in Opera, Chrome and Firefox for Android that in the native browser, an option could be to encourage users to use other browser to get a better experience but not everyone would like to receive such a message. Also Chrome sucks the life out of the poor little low-end device.

 

I'm afraid that you'll have to rely on your colleague to keep testing for performance.

[al 2 Likes (Newbie)]

Thanks for the information Rodrigo!

 

I guess the best bet is to just get a cheap android phone to test with.  

 

Is there any more information on some specific gotchas for android to look out for (like the pixel-snapping stuff mentioned in the article above)?

[Jonathan 5,176 Likes (Superhero)]

Hello al,

 

The latest build of Google Chrome Dev Tools has a really nice emulation mode. You can test various tablets and devices.

 

More info: https://developer.chrome.com/devtools/docs/device-mode

 

But as Rodrigo advised, nothing beats testing on the actual device. I have found emulation can get be a great help.. but to do final testing on the actual devices.

 

[Rodrigo 2,662 Likes (Superhero)]

Thanks for the information Rodrigo!

 

I guess the best bet is to just get a cheap android phone to test with.  

 

Is there any more information on some specific gotchas for android to look out for (like the pixel-snapping stuff mentioned in the article above)?

 

You're welcome Andrew.

 

As for issues regarding Android, nothing GSAP related that I know about, just some bumps regarding some CSS stuff not working and some properties not being supported in version 2.x, mainly in the native browser. I'm pretty sure you're aware of those by now.

 

Happy Tweening!!