Why is Smartphone Battery Life So Bad?

Phones have improved dramatically in the last ten years. Modern smartphones seem like a technology from an alien civilization when placed next to the original cell phones. But battery life hasn’t improved. In fact, battery life feels like it’s getting worse.

Old dumb phones could run for a week or more on a charge, but modern smartphones often struggle to make it through an entire day. Battery technology doesn’t seem to be advancing fast enough. What gives?

Battery Technology Isn’t Improving Much

We’re all used to technology improving dramatically. Every year, CPUs, memory, displays and other components become better, faster, and cheaper to manufacture. They offer more computing power, capacity, and pixels for your money. and technology is improving exponentially. Smartphones today have faster CPUs, cheaper storage, more RAM, and higher-quality displays then ever. The difference between a smartphone today and one released a few years ago is huge.

However, battery technology just isn’t improving at the same pace. Battery technology isn’t completely stuck, and battery technology is definitely improving – but it’s improving by small amounts. We don’t see the exponential increase we see with other types of technology. While other parts of modern portable electronics have been improving quickly, batteries have been lagging behind. Other components are shrinking, but batteries still take up a large part of a phone’s internals.

Various people are working on new battery technologies, but it’s unclear when they’ll make it to the market. Even the most optimistic predictions leave us with only small improvements for the next few years.

Batteries Are Becoming Thinner and Smaller

Battery technology has been improving somewhat, and smartphone components are becoming more power efficient, requiring less electricity to produce the same amount of performance output. So why haven’t we seen noticeable improvements?

Modern smartphones are becoming thinner and lighter. Rather than capitalize on improvements by offering more battery life at the same form factor, smartphone manufacturers choose to make the batteries even thinner so they can shrink the size of their smartphones. The iPhone 5 is thinner and lighter than the iPhone 4S and advertises somewhat longer battery life, but the battery life could have improved more dramatically if Apple had chosen to keep the iPhone 5 the same thickness as the iPhone 4S. Like other smartphone manufacturers, Apple chose to offer a thinner, lighter phone. Larger batteries are also more expensive, so shrinking them helps keep costs down.

Extended batteries were once an option. However, as more and more phones ship without user-serviceable batteries, we no longer have the option to buy bigger batteries or carry a spare battery with most phones.

Not all phones have such tiny batteries. The Droid Razr MAXX line is loved for its long battery life, and iPhone fans craving longer battery life can buy battery packs like the popular Mophie Juice Pack. However, most phones are becoming thinner and thinner.

Push Notifications and Background Sync

A dumb phone did very little. It wasn’t constantly receiving notifications of new emails, social network updates, and other current information. It wasn’t checking your podcasts and downloading new episodes. It wasn’t checking for app updates, downloading new weather forecasts, automatically updating your location, or anything else like that.

Modern smartphones are basically just computers – in fact, they run the same software. Android uses Linux, iOS uses Darwin (Darwin powers OS X), and Windows Phone 8 uses the Windows NT kernel used by Windows on the desktop.

Your phone’s screen may be off, but the phone itself may be on and busy. wakelocks are the things that keep your phone awake when its screen is off. On Android, where apps have more freedom to misbehave thanks to a more flexible process model, bad apps could run in the background while your phone is off, consuming CPU resources.

Apple’s iOS restricts programs much more, but push notifications and syncing can still drain battery power.

Larger Screens, Faster CPUs, More Cores, and LTE Radios

Price per performance may be improving, but we’re shoving much more powerful hardware into our phones. Every year, displays get larger and higher-resolution, CPUs get faster and add cores(the Samsung Galaxy S 4 has an 8-core CPU), and LTE radios are added to more phones. While LTE allows for faster data transfers than previous generation 3G technology, LTE radios require more battery power.

There’s also more hardware in a modern smartphone than an old dumb phone. Aside from the cellular radio, there’s Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, GPS, and NFC. It may not be on all the time, but it drains your battery life when it is.

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Battery technology hasn’t been improving at the exponential rate that other smartphone technologies have, so a smartphone with longer battery life requires trade-offs. You could have a smartphone with much longer battery life, but it would be heavier and thicker. You could squeeze even more battery life out of a smartphone by putting less-demanding hardware into the phone, but people want large, high-resolution displays and fast CPUs.

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Why Do Carriers Delay Updates for Android But Not iPhone?

We’ve looked at the reasons why your Android phone probably isn’t getting updates before, and one of the reasons why is because each carrier must subject each update to a testing process before releasing it — if they ever release it.

This causes Android updates trickle out carrier-by-carrier. But updates for Apple’s iPhone are available everywhere when they’re released — so what’s going on?

Carriers Control Most Android Phones

Android devices actually follow the established cell phone model. You get a phone from your carrier on-contract. That carrier has customized that phone, adding their own branding and software (often considered bloatware) to it. The phone itself may be a unique model only available on your carrier. Carriers have traditionally loved unique phone models — witness the way the original Samsung Galaxy S split into the Samsung Vibrant, Samsung Fascinate, Samsung Mesmerize, and so on. Each phone was a slightly different Galaxy S (or even the same), but had a different name so each carrier could have their own unique phone.

Your carrier exercises control over your device even after you buy it, preventing it from working on other cellular networks (by locking it to their network). They are the ones in control of the phone and the software it comes with, and they are the ones in charge of approving and rolling out updates. You generally can’t get these updates from the manufacturer directly — only from the carrier.

When a new version of Android is released, the device manufacturer has to take it and adapt their existing customizations to it. They also have to make it work on all their phones, including the carrier-specific variants. This is why many manufacturers haven’t bothered updating many less-popular or older phones.

The manufacturer then has to send out the updates to every carrier. It’s each carrier’s job to test all the different updates for all their different smartphones, and they may take many months to do so. They may even decline to do the work and never release the update.

Apple Controls the iPhone

Love it or hate it, Apple used the popularity of their iPhone to upset this established model. Apple informed carriers (AT&T at first) that they were in charge of the phone. There was just a single iPhone, not an iPhone variant for every carrier. Carriers weren’t allowed to install their own software or brand it with their logos. They weren’t put in charge of updates — iPhone updates come from Apple, not from the carriers.

While there are many Android phones and variants of Android phones, there’s just one iPhone — there’s no iPhone Captivate, iPhone Fascinate, or iPhone Mesmerize.

Users want the iPhone, so carriers want to offer it. Apple uses this as leverage to exert their power over carriers and insist on this model, and carriers can’t hold back iPhone updates for the same reason they can’t ship iPhones filled with bloatware or with carrier logos stamped across their fronts.

Carriers may want to block iPhone updates but be unable to. An issue with iOS 6.1 resulted in Vodafone UK and 3 Austria asking their customers to not update to iOS 6.1 before the issue was fixed. The carriers couldn’t block the updates, as that wasn’t in their control — they could only ask their users nicely.

So Why Are Carriers Holding Back Updates?

It’s undoubtedly easier for carriers to test iPhone updates and inform Apple of any problems than it is for the carriers to test updates for a wide swath of different Android phones, some of which only exist on that carrier.

However, that isn’t the only reason carriers hold back updates:

• Updates Involve Work: When Samsung hands over a new build of Android for one of its phones, carriers have to do their own work to customize the phone. They’ll need to add their own branding and apps (bloatware) to the devices, which takes additional work.
• Carriers Can Delay Updates: Carriers can get away with putting this work off or failing to do it.  They have the ability to delay update rollouts for months if they feel like it, dragging their feet. Apple will release iPhone updates with or without them.
• Planned Obsolescence: Carriers don’t really want to upgrade a years-old smartphone and have it feel like new. As businesses looking to sell you a new phone and get you to renew your contract, it’s in their interest to make the new phones look attractive — and timely updates for old phones just cost additional money and make new products less tempting. Carriers have an incentive not to update their phones.

What Exactly Needs to Be Tested?

The carrier will need to test the phone’s software, particularly because that software has likely been customized by the carrier. They will need to ensure all their included apps work properly and that the phone’s specific software — which has likely had less testing than the iPhone’s software, which is the same worldwide — works properly.

Carriers also want to test the device to make sure it works properly on their network. They’ll want to ensure it doesn’t place additional load on the network, lead to additional dropped calls, or cause other problems.

Carriers Also Control Windows Phone

We’ve focused on Android here, but Windows Phone is in the same boat. Updates for Windows Phone devices must be approved by every carrier. When it was originally released,  Microsoft created an official website where users could track Windows Phone 7 updates on a per-carrier basis to see which carriers worldwide were failing to issue updates or issuing them too slowly.

However, Microsoft eventually took their “Where’s My Phone Update?” website down — perhaps because it annoyed carriers too much. Microsoft no longer provides information about the status of updates. Updates for Windows Phone 8 devices must still be approved by carriers before they roll out to Windows Phone devices.

Avoiding the Carriers

The only way to avoid the carrier control on non-iPhone phones is by going around them, purchasing a device directly from the phone’s manufacturer. For example, Google’s Nexus 4will receive updates from Google without any carrier getting involved. Users can also purchase other unlocked, off-contract devices and receive updates without carrier involvement — assuming the manufacturer releases those updates.

You can also go off the beaten path, unlocking your phone’s boot loader and installing a custom ROM like Cyanogenmod to get an updated version of Android, whether your carrier wants you to or not.

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So why exactly do carriers hold back updates for Android phones, but not for Apple’s iPhone? Well, because they can get away with it — Apple can insist that they’re in charge of updates and carriers have to play ball if they want the iPhone. Other phone platforms provide a way for carriers to continue providing the locked-down, customized phones they love so much and continue exercising their control over them.

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What Android Data is Backed Up Automatically?

Much of the data on your Android phone or tablet is backed up by Google (or the individual apps you use) automatically. Your photos can also be backed up automatically, but aren’t by default. However, some data is never backed up automatically.

We’ll explain exactly what data is backed up automatically and what isn’t, so you can rest easy knowing your data is safe – or take steps to back up some application data on your own.

What Google Backs Up Automatically

By default, Google backs up most types of data you care about and associates it with the appropriate Google service, where you can also access it on the web.

• Contacts, Email, and Calendars: Your Android contacts are synced with your Google contacts online (you can access these contacts from Gmail or on the dedicated Google Contacts page), your email is safely stored in your Gmail account, and calendar events are synced with Google Calendar.
• Chrome Browser Data: If you use the Chrome browser, your bookmarks synchronize with your Chrome sync account. In newer versions of Android on some phones, the stock browser syncs with your Chrome bookmarks as well.
• Google Talk Chat Logs: Google Talk chat logs are stored in your Gmail account, assuming you haven’t disabled chat logging in Gmail.
• Some System Settings: Android also synchronizes some other system settings – for example, Android stores saved passphrases for Wi-Fi networks and retrieves them on each Android device you use.
• Apps and Other Purchased Content: Any apps you have purchased (or installed) are linked with your Google account. When you set up a new Android device (or enter your account after resetting your Android phone or tablet to factory default settings), Android will offer to automatically download and install the apps you previously had installed. You can also view apps you have previously installed in the Google Play app, so you won’t forget which apps you have used (or purchased). Other content you purchase from Google Play is also tied to your Google account.
• Some Third-Party App Data: Third-party apps often, but not always, sync their data with web services. If you have an app containing data important to you, be sure to check whether it syncs data online before wiping or getting rid of your phone.

This isn’t an exhaustive list, but it should give you some idea of what’s backed up automatically. The most important things are backed up automatically, so you don’t need to worry about losing your email, contacts, apps, or even saved Wi-Fi passphrases.

How to Automatically Back Up Your Photos

If you have upgraded your Google account to Google+, you can open the Google+ app and enable “Instant Upload” for your photos. Any photos you take on your phone will be automatically uploaded to a private album in your Google+ Photos account online (Google+ Photos is the new name for the service previously known as Picasa Web Albums.) You can have Android upload your photos immediately or wait until you connect to a Wi-Fi network.

You can access photos from your Google+ Photos in Android’s Gallery app, so you’ll never have to worry about losing your photos if you use the Instant Upload feature.

Google+ isn’t the only app that offers this type of feature. You can also use the Dropbox or Facebook apps to automatically upload your photos to your Dropbox or Facebook accounts. It’s your choice where you want to store your photos online.

What Google Doesn’t Back Up

Now that we’re covered what Google does automatically back up, let’s take a look at what they don’t:

• SMS Messages: Android doesn’t back up your text messages by default. If having a copy of you text messages is important to you, follow our guide to backing up your text messages to your Gmail account.
• Google Authenticator Data: For security reasons, Google doesn’t synchronize yourGoogle Authenticator codes online. If you wipe your Android device, you’ll lose your ability to perform two-step authentication. You can still authenticate via SMS or a printed authentication code and then set up a new device with new Google Authenticator codes.
• Game Progress: Google provides an “Android Backup Service” that allows developers to back up their data and have it automatically restored in the future. However, you’ll find that many apps don’t take advantage of this feature. If you’re playing Angry Birds or Cut the Rope and you get a new phone or perform a factory restore, you will notice that your game progress was erased and you have to restart from the beginning. Some games may back up your data, but be warned that many do not.
• Logins: You will have to log into the apps you use on each new device. For example, Google won’t remember your Netflix password – you will have to enter it into the Netflix app each time you get a new device or restore your device to factory defaults.
• App Settings: Many other app settings aren’t backed up by default. Whether it’s preferences in an app you use or alarms you’ve created in the Clock app, they probably aren’t backed up online. Some third-party apps contain backup features that export the app’s data to a local file, which you must then keep track of manually (perhaps by uploading it to Google Drive).

This isn’t an exhaustive list, either. Much of this will depend on the individual apps you use and whether they back up your data or not.

Full Phone Backups

Most people shouldn’t have to back up their Android phone or tablet manually – Android’s default backup features should be more than good enough. However, some people may want to back up data that Android doesn’t back up by default – game saves, logins, app settings, or whatever else.

If you want to back up and restore your Android data manually, you have several options:

• Titanium Backup: Titanium Backup is the granddaddy of backup apps. You can use the free version of Titanium Backup, but Titanium Backup is so popular that Titanium Backup Pro is the second most popular paid Android app on Google Play, even at $6.50. However, Titanium Backup does require root access, so it’s not for everyone. We have previously covered using Titanium Backup to back up and restore your Android device.
• Android’s Hidden Local Backup Feature: Android has a built-in backup and restore feature that doesn’t require root, but this feature is hidden. You have to perform a backup or restore by connecting your device to your computer and running a command.The Ultimate Backup Tool simplifies things a bit, providing a different interface to the same hidden backup feature.

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In short, Android already backs up the most important things by default – but be sure to enable Instant Upload using an app like Google+, Dropbox, or Facebook so you have a backup copy of your photos! Advanced users may want to use a local backup tool, but most people shouldn’t need to.

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How to Share Data and Files Between Your Android Phone and PC

Android doesn’t have an iTunes-like desktop program, so the process of syncing your data may not be as obvious as it is with an iPhone.  However, you don’t need a desktop syncing app — even iPhone users are leaving iTunes behind.

While you can move files back and forth with a USB cable or wireless network connection, the ideal way to keep data in sync between your devices is by relying on online services that do the work for you.

Transfer Files Manually to Your Phone

If you do want to transfer files the old-fashioned way, you can copy files directly to your Android device. This is ideal if you want to copy music, videos, or other media files to your Android phone or tablet. After copying the files over, they should be automatically appear in your Android media player app. You can also use a file manager app to view them.

• USB Cables: Connect your Android phone directly to your computer using the USB cable you use to charge it. It will appear as a new drive in the Computer window, where you can copy files back and forth like you would from a USB flash drive. Older Android devices may require you to pull down the notification bar on your phone and tap the Turn on USB storage option to make the Android’s storage accessible on the PC after plugging it in.

Wireless File Transfers: If you want to transfer files wirelessly, you have a wide variety of options. AirDroid is one of the most convenient. Install the AirDroid app and you’ll be able to access your phone from a web browser, giving you the ability to copy files back and forth. You can also set up Windows networking or creat an FTP server to allow your phone to access your PC’s storage.

• Cloud Storage: Copying files the old-fashioned way is best if they are very large — for example, if you want to copy a video file to your Android phone. However, transferring small files and keeping files in sync is easier if you use cloud storage. Whether you use Dropbox, Google Drive, SkyDrive, or another cloud storage service, you can drop the file into the cloud storage folder on your computer and open the associated app on your phone. This will give you access to the file without having to transfer it to your phone manually or take up any of your phone’s internal storage.

There are third-party syncing apps that try to replicate that iTunes experience with an Android phone, but you don’t need them.

Sync Your Browser Data

Want all your browser bookmarks, open tabs, history settings, and other data to follow you between your phone and computer? Just enable the sync option in your web browser, install the appropriate browser on your Android phone, and activate the sync option there, too.

• Google Chrome: Log into Chrome on your PC with your Google account and use the Google Chrome browser on Android.
• Mozilla Firefox: Enable Firefox Sync on your PC and use Firefox for Android.
• Opera: If you’re an Opera user, you can enable Opera Link and use Opera for Android.

Users of Internet Explorer or Safari don’t have an official syncing solution. There are unofficial sync apps available, but we haven’t tested them.

Get Music On Your Phone

You could connect a USB cable and copy all your music files to your phone, but that won’t be ideal if you have too much music to fit on your phone. Instead, try using Google Music Manager, which will upload a copy of your music files to Google’s servers for free. You can then use Google’s Play Music app on your phone to listen to your entire music collection if you have an Internet connection, or to cache music on your device to make it accessible offline.

Use Online Services

In the old days, people synchronized their palm pilots and old smartphones with their computers to keep their contacts, calendar events, and other data in sync between their PC and their handheld device. This isn’t the way things are done anymore — in fact, you would have trouble finding a software solution that let you sync your data in this way.

Instead, data is synced by relying on online (“cloud”) services, and Android does this by default. Your Android’s contacts and calendar events are automatically synchronized with Gmail’s Contacts and Google Calendar, where you can access them from a web browser by logging in with the same Google account. Any changes you make to the Contacts or Calendar from your browser will replicate themselves on your phone.

Instead of worrying about synchronizing data back and forth, look for services that have solid Android apps and useful websites or desktop apps and use them to keep your data in sync across your devices. For example, it’s much easier to use the popular Evernote (or another note-taking app, such as Google’s own Google Keep) to keep your notes in sync across your devices than it is to take text notes on your Android and copy them back and forth using a USB connection.

Assuming you use the same services on your PC and your phone, keeping their data in sync should be a snap. This part should happen automatically.

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Have any other tips for moving your data back and forth and keeping it in sync? Leave a reply and share them!

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Type Faster: 6 Tips and Tricks for Mastering Android’s Keyboard

If all you do with your Android phone or tablet’s keyboard is tap out words, you are missing a lot of great features. There’s more to learn about a keyboard than you might expect.

Of course, you can just type out words without paying attention to any of these features — but mastering them will help you type faster and save time while entering text.

Voice Typing

If your hands aren’t free — or you just feel like dictating — you can tap the microphone button on the keyboard and enter words just by speaking them.

This feature sends your voice input to Google’s speech recognition service, where it’s examined, converted to text, and sent back to your phone. This means that it requires an Internet connection, but the approach of using Google’s massive computing power makes it surprisingly accurate.

To enter punctuation marks while using voice recognition, just say “period,” “comma,” “question mark,” “exclamation mark,” or “exclamation point.” Android will enter the appropriate punctuation mark instead of the words.

Offline Voice Typing

If you’re using Android 4.2 or a newer version of Android, you can now use voice typing offline. You’ll just need to install the appropriate voice-recognition language dictionaries. Note that voice recognition is slightly less accurate in offline mode.

To install the dictionaries, open the Settings screen, tap Language & input, and tap the settings button to the right of Google voice typing.

Download the languages you want to use offline from the Offline Speech Recognition screen.

Swipe to Type

The default keyboard in Android 4.2 gained the ability to type words simply by swiping your finger over them.

To type a word by swiping, simply touch the first letter and glide your finger over the letters — for example, to type Geek, touch the G, move your finger to the E, and then move your finger to the K. Android will try to guess what you’re typing, displaying it above the keyboard. Lift your finger and the word will be typed. You can do this to type many words in sequence quickly, lifting your finger from the screen in between each one.

Word Prediction and Auto-correction

When tapping in a word, Android 4.2′s keyboard will try to think ahead and guess the word you’re about to type. For example, type Messa and  “Message” will appear above the keyboard. You can then tap the space bar to move to the next word and Android will automatically fill in the rest of the word it’s expecting you to type.

The keyboard will even use context to guess which word you’re likely to type, even if you haven’t started typing a word yet. Tap one of the suggestions to type it.

Keyboard Settings

You can customize your keyboard’s behavior, too. Open the Settings screen, tap Language & input, and tap the settings button to the right of the Android keyboard.

The keyboard settings screen contains options for disabling features like swiping, auto-correction, auto-capitalization, and next-word suggestions. You can also make auto-correction even more aggressive or switch to other keyboard layouts, like the French QWERTZ layout.

Third-Party Keyboard Replacements

Android’s included keyboard is just one of many options — in fact, your phone’s manufacturer may have already included third-party keyboards like Swype for you to use. You can install other third-party keyboards from Google Play and switch between them. For example, many people consider SwiftKey to have the best auto-correction features, while Swype is the original swipe-over-letters-to-type-them keyboard.

Such experimental features are usually found on Android first — you can find a wide variety of different keyboards, all with their own ideas of how to make text input faster and more efficient.

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Android’s keyboard isn’t just a keyboard — it’s a piece of software with its own unique tricks, but also one that can be swapped out and replaced for another keyboard that you might like better. If you want a different keyboard on your iPhone or iPad, you’ll have to jailbreak it.

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How to Install Android in VirtualBox

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Want to run Android on your PC? The Android-x86 Project has ported Android to the x86 platform from ARM. Android-x86 can be installed on netbooks with supported hardware, but you can also install Android in VirtualBox.

Android can be run as just another virtual machine, like you would run a Windows or Linux virtual machine. This allows you to play with the Android interface and install apps in a full Android environment on your PC.

What You’ll Need

Before you can get started, you’ll need both VirtualBox and an Android-x86 ISO to install inside VirtualBox.

• Install VirtualBox: Download and install VirtualBox if you don’t already have it installed.
• Download an Android-x86 ISO: You can find the latest Android-x86 ISO files at Google Code. Download the latest one — currently Android 4.2.

Creating an Android Virtual Machine

You can now open VirtualBox and create a new virtual machine by clicking the New button. Go through the wizard and configure your virtual machine with the following settings:

• Operating System: Linux – Linux 2.6
• Memory Size: 512 MB
• Hard Drive Size: 3 GB or More

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Next, power on your new virtual machine and point VirtualBox at the Android-x86 ISO file you downloaded. The installer will boot up inside your virtual machine.

Select the Installation option and press Enter to continue.

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We’ll need to create a partition for the Android system. Select the Create/Modify partitionsoption and press Enter.

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Select the New option with your arrow keys and press Enter to create a new partition in the free space.

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Choose the Primary option and press Enter, then press Enter again to have the partition take up the entire size of the virtual disk you created.

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Highlight the Bootable option and press Enter to make the partition bootable, then select the Write option and press Enter to write your changes to the virtual disk. You’ll have to type yes and press Enter to confirm writing the changes.

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Activate the Quit option and you’ll go back to the Choose Partition screen.

This time, you’ll see the partition you created at the top of the screen. Select the partition and press Enter to install Android to it.

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Select the ext3 file system, and then select Yes to format the partition.

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Choose Yes to install the GRUB bootloader, and then select Yes to install the /system directory as read-write.

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Once you’re done, you can remove the ISO file and reboot your virtual machine.

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Android should boot up like any other operating system would in your virtual machine. As with an Android smartphone or tablet, you’ll have to go through the setup process and optionally provide Google account details. Skip the Wi-Fi setup screen — Android will use your virtual machine’s standard Internet connection.

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If your mouse cursor doesn’t work, click the Machine menu and select the Disable Mouse Integration option. Click inside the virtual machine and you’ll see the mouse cursor. Press the host key displayed at the bottom-right corner of the virtual machine window (default key: Right Ctrl) to release the mouse cursor from the virtual machine.

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You’ll boot into a live Android environment, complete with Google apps like Gmail, Maps, and the Play Store for installing other apps.

Android is primarily designed for touch input, but it can also be used with a mouse and keyboard — this means that your computer’s mouse and keyboard can function as serviceable input devices. Just don’t try doing anything you need multi-touch for.

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This isn’t the fastest way to run Android apps on your PC — BlueStacks is faster if all you want to do is play Temple Run 2 or another Android game on your Windows PC. However, Android-x86 provides access to a complete Android system in a virtual machine. It’s a great way to get more familiar with a standard Android system or just experiment with it like you would experiment with a virtual machine running any other operating systems.

Go full-screen with an Android virtual machine and you’ll get an idea of what it would be like to use Android on a laptop. If the rumors we’re hearing are correct, we’ll be seeing Android laptops coming out this year — ASUS Transformer devices already function just like Android laptops when in docked mode.

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