Android emulator screen sizes

Question

From your experience as an android developer what emulator screen sizes do you use?

Are there a couple that tend to catch most UI sizing issues or do you test your app in every size and density?

Answer 1

While coding, try to cover at least one of each from this table: http://developer.android.com/guide/practices/screens_support.html#testing . After most of the work is done, I would suggest try every combination you'll find in real devices you plan to deploy your app.

My very basic list while I am designing the UI is:

• WQVGA 120 dpi
• HVGA 160 dpi
• WVGA 160 dpi
• WVGA 240 dpi

Add 480x640 240 dpi if you want to support small screens.

You can use the pie chart here to have an idea of relative screen size usage: http://developer.android.com/resources/dashboard/screens.html

BTW, I have use AVDs from Donut to Gingerbread also.

Answer 2

At some point, I test on every size and density that I intend the app to run on. It's irresponsible not to do so.

But beware of densities; because of dpi scaling, you may be running what you think is an hdpi emulator, but the emulator is loading mdpi resources (or vice versa). It's a good practice when testing to log the reported density during onCreate of your launch activity. (My approach, though, is to use an app icon for each density that displays the density, at least until I want to test the real app icons. That way I can tell from the home screen what the emulator thinks it is running.)