The program also ran disturbingly slow on my two-year-old laptop, so a newer computer with at least 4GB of RAM, if not more, is recommended if you want to run Android apps with Andy.īest for: Those who don't have a touch-screen PC and who want to use their Android device as a game controller, have enough system resources to run the virtual machine, have a laptop with an ARM processor, want to run Andy on both Windows and Mac, and/or want to run Android in a flexible, resizable window (the other programs reviewed here only offer a fixed-size window).īlueStacks App Player was one of the first Android emulators. Android apps can be launched from your Windows desktop, and you can copy files between Android and Windows through a shared folder.Īndy is also attractively 100 percent free, although its parent company is an alleged adware distributor (a fact that might give some people pause). You can use your Android phone as a controller for Andy on your desktop (helpful when playing games that require tilting or tapping, if your computer doesn't support these). The program offers many ways for Android to interact with your PC (with either x86 processors or ARM processors) and even your phone. The latter comes in handy, because instead of leaving a browser tab open for Facebook or Gmail or needing your phone for messaging apps like Snapchat, you can just get the notifications in Andy.
You can basically do anything in Andy that you could on an Android tablet or phone, including adding widgets to your home screen, backing up your virtual device to Google and receiving app notifications.
Nox emulator full#
Andy provides the full Android (4.2.2 KitKat) experience in either full-screen or windowed mode.