Physical Devices or Emulators: What to choose for Compatibility Testing?

There are certain valid reasons to consider the usage of emulators as a means of testing. There are many free emulators available in the market that offer various screen resolutions or device mimicking that allow you to view what your product shall look like on a specified device. Another reason for the use of emulators is that the typical user interface issues, like screen sizes, can be found and alleviated on real devices only. They further allow real time data extraction, which provides the developers with the necessary information required to debug issues.

However, we believe that they are not sufficient enough for the final testing of a product purely because they are not able to cover all the functionalities that need to be tested to ensure the compatibility of the product. From our own experience, testing on physical devices provides most accurate, clearest results. By doing so, you avoid a common pitfall of using an emulator which is finding inaccurate results. Although it is completely impossible to cover the full range of devices available, below are some key reasons to why we feel that you should use real devices:

The Look and Feel

Emulators cannot guarantee the look and feel of an application. It also cannot adequately judge the responsiveness of the applications on a particular device via emulation. The other look and feel drawbacks of using emulators are that you will be unable to test the brightness of the display, the color scheme, and the pixel density under the varying lighting conditions or while moving around.

Device orientation is another key reason for using physical devices. Emulators are not reliable enough to authorize how your application shall respond when the device is being switched from the portrait to landscape view, or to replicate the actual user experience.

The Usability

An emulator may not be able to replicate the real user experience of a touch screen device. Traditional computers utilize the power and precision of a mouse control, something that is not used in the everyday lives by those who use mobile phones and tablets to access applications. With the continuing increase of handheld devices over traditional computers for accessing information, execution is more commonly performed by hand now. This is slower and less accurate; hence, it is important that the UI reflects this form of operation.

The Connectivity

Testing with emulators does not provide an accurate account of the conditions and the scenarios the applications will face when being accessed by a user who is moving around. They are unable to account for the real world effects such as the location, signal strength of the carrier, or simply the different between the indoor and the outdoor conditions.

The Software

Despite being new to the industry, the mobile sector is much more fragmented, with the key providers being iOS, Android and Symbian. The developers have to work in multiple development environments, which complicates the development and the testing processes. The newer operating system will have the capability to support the newer functionalities, actions and render something that the older operating system versions shall not. Emulators are incapable to describe this difference.

The Hardware

Memory related issues are commonly found in mobile compatibility testing. Device fragmentation has increased significantly over the past year with more than 4000 device configurations found this year. Emulators have difficulty in replicating the user experience between the low and the high end devices. This is because the processor of the PC is 10 times more powerful than that of a given android device.

While the emulators are able to test some major functionality, they are highly limited and need a physical device to ensure if the application is tested completely. There is no other way other than using the physical device itself for testing the power consumption and proficiency of your application. If the application causes stark strain on a user’s device, then they are highly suspected to continue using it.

Final words

One of the key reasons organizations opt for using emulators over physical devices is the cost of procuring abundant devices. But, any real physical device testing is preferable over none. Emulators are a useful tool for testing devices, and certainly have their place, but to provide accurate, realistic evaluation of the user experience and an in-depth analysis of the functionality.

A probable solution to this can be to hire an external test lab like the one provided by BugRaptors. BugRaptors is a CMMi5 certified quality assurance company with an extensive experience in Compatibility Testing and various testing services. Visit the website for more insights.