Gadgetory

hello again ladies and gentlemen I'm Joe handy the Android authority app guide BlueStacks has been the gold standard for running Android on PC for some time now there is a new challenger called Andy roid can the King be dethroned let's take a look okay so here's how this is going to go down we're going to be judging these two applications based on five different things that is ease of usin set up gaming productivity mice latest features and overall if at any point you're wondering exactly which one I'm talking about keep your eye on the lower left hand corner of the screen because I'll have it posted there for BlueStacks setting things up was ridiculously easy you go to the site you download the application install it and go it's super easy once you're inside you can browse and install various games and access them on the bar at the top when it comes to ease-of-use and setting things up BlueStacks is practically idiot-proof Andy started out the same way downloading and installing the application was easy I did have a problem actually getting it to run but thanks to their support I was able to figure out the problem once you actually started up it runs like any Android phone or tablet so the interface is familiar Andy does get some points back for having a good support staff they use Facebook as their support page and their people are generally pretty knowledgeable in fact shout out to Charlie from Andy because he's the dude that helped me out still at the end of the day I have to give the victory and ease-of-use and set up to BlueStacks it simply doesn't require any effort and it really is just that easy of course what are the main reasons people want Android on their computers is for gaming fortunately both of these emulators support game play on Android in BlueStacks it appears as though the main focus is for gaming they don't really recommend any normal applications and we assume the recommended games are ones that have been tested and work well with BlueStacks the games run fairly well you can get ones in the Play Store that aren't listed in the BlueStacks recommendations but they tend to run a little more clunky than the recommended ones andy focuses on an overall experience so there aren't as many features there for gamers for instance BlueStacks has keyboard shortcuts built in for some games whereas Andy does not it does play games and in some cases like clash of clans it actually the game better than BlueStacks in terms of stability this is especially true for Network based games which seem to load a lot faster on Andy Andy does have a remote option where you can use your device as a controller for better gaming support if you so choose BlueStacks does allow game controller support as well but it requires a wired controller thanks to the fact that it runs a newer version of Android the remote support and just general performance we have to give Andy the win here there are some people who wish to use Android on their computers for productivity reasons here BlueStacks doesn't fail utterly but it does come close it doesn't seem to like to run regular Android applications as well as it does games and that's a damn shame as you can see here there is an excruciating amount of lag when simply typing things in Google Drive it doesn't recommend any productivity apps so you have to go out of your way to even find them really BlueStacks wants to be a gaming emulator and this is an area where it shows that said there are a few productivity apps that do work well so if you need it for something very light like some word processing it could still work for that like we stated earlier Andy focuses more on a rounded experience and this is where it shows the same sort of problems I was having on BlueStacks simply we're not present in Andy the Google Drive lag wasn't present apps load it quickly and worked well it's also worth pointing out that Andy can run things like hangouts as well as third-party launchers it can deliver real notifications and even use widgets it is worth mentioning that BlueStacks does run on an older version of Android while Andy runs on a newer version that means in terms of things like app compatibility Andy will probably have more applications that are usable than BlueStacks I think it's pretty clear who the winner is with this one and you delivers a more traditional Android experience than BlueStacks and that makes it a lot better if you're looking to be more productive we've talked about the big stuff but what about the little things here are the miscellaneous features BlueStacks is pretty much a what-you-see-is-what-you-get kind of deal in a small way simplicity is elegance and that means there isn't much guesswork that said you can sync BlueStacks with your Android devices to sync app data text and the like if you really wanted to you can also side load applications which is a fairly simple process overall there are some things but really not that many spoiler this is the part in the video where Andy really starts to pull ahead you can do pretty much anything with Andy that you can do with an Android phone that includes side loading applications putting on there from your computer if you need to real file browsing and some stuff we mentioned earlier like fully functioning notifications widgets and you can even route the thing if you really want to one of the things I really liked personally was the ability to install third-party launchers since it runs pretty much like any other Android device you can customize it pretty much like any other Android device so between the custom launchers wallpapers widgets icon pack set cetera you can turn Andi into a little window of customization and really make it truly yours the last thing I want to mention here is the ability to change the specs on Andy it runs in a virtual machine which is actually customizable you can open up the VirtualBox that comes with Andy and give it some extra RAM change how many CPU cores it has and various other small things as well beware though this is advanced user stuff but you can totally go in there and give this bad boy 3 gigabytes of RAM instead of the one and actually improve the performance it also runs a higher version of Android than BlueStacks and that means you'll have a higher app compatibility as well as better app stability obviously the winner here is Andy and I don't really need to explain why overall picking which one is better really depends on your needs if you really just need something super simple that plays some light games and you really don't need it to do much else then BlueStacks is still probably your best bet after all like we said earlier there is an advantage to having simplicity however if you're willing to go through the slightly more complicated set up process than Andy is by far the more full-featured Android emulator it's way better for customization and productivity and in some cases it's even better at gaming with the power user stuff available like route and adding resources Andy is simply a better option for more demographics if you're wondering yes I am saying that BlueStacks has been pretty much sorted as they go to Android emulator on PC if you want to check either of these out we'll have the links in the video description below once again I'm Joe handy for manager at authority comm while you're here why not subscribe to the Android Authority YouTube channel if you want to follow Android authority myself for the rest of the video team you can find our social media links in the video description below if you're hanging out for a minute we have a couple of awesome videos for you to watch right over there and in the video description below for you folks on mobile forget to check out the written companion in the video description below for more information if you need it as always thanks for watching everybody and have a wonderful day