Test Automation On Real And Virtual Devices

By Author: ZenQ
Total Articles: 57
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Advantages of Real Devices:
1. Real world testing using devices in which the app with actually work in provides much deeper insight into the system and shows how the device will actually function. Also working in real world conditions is much easier than creating a virtual environment.
2. Components like brightness, resolution and screen adaptability can be easily checked using real world devices rather than in virtual simulators.
3. Actual devices help in testing the interoperability of the app by actually showing the correct workability of the same as will occur when the system is launched.
4. In most cases real devices respond to a situation much faster and more accurately than a simulated device which results in much more precise results of the tests.
Disadvantages of Real Devices:
1. Budget is an important issue when it comes to automated testing of an app using the real devices so projects which are suffering from time as well as budget crunch may find it difficult to perform these tests.
2. There are a huge number of real devices available in the market today. So it becomes ...
... difficult to choose the right kind of device for performing the test when time is an issue.
3. Emulators are much easily connected to Integrated Development Environment (IDE) than the real devices which may hinder the project when it comes to automated testing of an app as it will take longer to complete the said tests.
Advantages of Virtual Devices / Emulators:
1. Virtual devices can come in handy when there is a deadline to meet. Real devices often become time consuming as far as automated testing is concerned and thus the virtual devices come into the play.
2. Virtual devices are more appropriate in terms of budget related testing procedures. Real devices require a lot of investments and individual automated testing may require different real devices. On the other hand a single virtual device can bring forth various situations where the test automation may be conducted, thus saving a lot on the monetary font and hence is preferred by the organizations.
3. Virtual devices are usually open source in nature and hence can be easily customized based on the requirements of the automated testing process. They are also easily downloaded from the online sources.
4. Virtual devices are much easier to handle when dealing with web app testing procedures than the real devices.
Disadvantages of Virtual Devices / Emulators:
1. When the automated testing is related to the duration of the testing and long testing periods are being deployed to check how the system responds to these situations, virtual devices often fail to provide foolproof results and real devices are more preferred.
2. Incompatible virtual devices may end up in increasing the total cost of the automated testing process as it requires patching of the system in order to make it compatible for the tests that are being conducted on the system.
3. Virtual devices are created based on only a handful or operating system and their features and hence will limit the scope of the automated test procedures.
Now that you know the pros and cons of using both a virtual and a real device in test automation, we hope it will help you to choose the correct method and employ it to get the most out of the process.
ZenQ has proven expertise in providing efficient automation testing solutions. We offer both test automation consulting & maintenance.

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