Everyone was thrilled when last year Microsoft announced a project called Astoria that could run all the Android apps on any Windows PC. But all that excitement died away when this year Microsoft decided not to work on this project and abandoned it completely. Microsoft is now talking about integrating Linux with Windows, but only time will tell what happens. Anyway, if you are disappointed and feeling heart broken because of the ill-fated project Astoria, then you might want to bring some solace by using Andy, an Android emulator for Windows and Mac.
While other similar emulators are very difficult to install and work with, Andy makes everything easy by packing all the necessary software in one setup package. The downloads are available for both the 32-bit and 64-bit versions of operating systems and contain everything from the virtual machine to the Android ROMs.
After the installation is done, Andy can be launched by double-clicking on its desktop icon. The Andy emulator works better if you have a powerful PC with at-least a minimum of quad-core CPU, 4GB of RAM, a decent graphics card and around 10 GB of free space available for the use of Andy. If you have a slower system, then perhaps it won’t run at all or will work the speed of a snail.
In the Andy emulator, you are taken to the usual Android welcome message and you can setup your machine as you would on your smartphone. The Android version used is Jellybean 4.4.2 but the website of Andy mentions that the Lollipop 5.1 will be soon made available.
You can switch the Andy window to full-screen mode or rotate it in the landscape or portrait mode (as if you have rotated the Android tablet). You can install the games and apps through APK files or through the regular method and launch them on your PC.
Conclusion: Andy is fast Android emulator for Windows and Mac. It is great for playing your favorite Android games or running the apps on your large-screen desktop computer.
You can download Andy Android Emulator from http://www.andyroid.net/.