Starting New Android Virtual Device(AVD)

An Android Virtual Device (AVD) is an emulator configuration that lets you model an actual device by defining hardware and software options to be emulated by the Android Emulator.

AVD consists of:  

• A hardware profile: Defines the hardware features of the virtual device. For example, you can define whether the device has a camera, whether it uses a physical QWERTY keyboard or a dialing pad, how much memory it has, and so on.

• A mapping to a system image: You can define what version of the Android platform will run on the virtual device. You can choose a version of the standard Android platform or the system image packaged with an SDK add-on.

• Other options: You can specify the emulator skin you want to use with the AVD, which lets you control the screen dimensions, appearance, and so on. You can also specify the emulated SD card to use with the AVD.  

• A dedicated storage area on your development machine: the device's user data (installed applications, settings, and so on) and emulated SD card are stored in this area.

Note:-You can create as many AVDs as you need, based on the types of device you want to model. To thoroughly test your application, you should create an AVD for each general device configuration (for example, different screen sizes and platform versions) with which your application is compatible and test your application on each one.

Keep It in mind when create AVD:

You should create at least one AVD that uses a target whose API Level is greater than that required by your application, because it allows you to test the forward-compatibility of your application. Forward-compatibility testing ensures that, when users who have downloaded your application receive a system update, your application will continue to function normally.

The easiest way to create an AVD is to use the graphical avd manager, which you launch from Eclipse by clicking Window -> AVD Manager.

• Now Go to Android Virtual Device Manager.

• Now Click on New button or Select Device Definitions->Create AVD option.

• Fill the required details like target,Internal storage and sd card details etc.

• After it click on OK button. 

• A new AVD has been created with the given specification and Close the Android SDK and AVD Manager.
•  Now you have successfully created AVD you are ready to test your application.

• By hitting the start button and after selecting avd,you have to wait for some moment,because avd takes some second in start-up process.  
• Finally you will see the similar picture of avd.