Running Android 13 on PC is a good option developers working in the Google ecosystem and also for enthusiastic users who want to discover what’s new in the latest mobile operating system but still can’t install it natively on their smartphone.

Google makes it easy by offering free Android Studio software and an AVD Manager tool that lets you virtually run multiple Android devices at once. In this article, we’ll remind you of the basics to get started with development tasks, or simply take a look at what’s new in the latest version of Android if you’re curious.

What is Android Studio and AVD Manager?

Android Studio is an application development tool for Android. It offers an integrated development environment (IDE) that helps developers code Android apps easily. As for the AVD Manager (Android Virtual Device Manager) that concerns us, it is a tool included in the general package that allows developers create a virtual android smartphone or android emulator to test mobile applications.

Android Studio is ideal because it is owned by Google and receives timely updates with the latest operating system features including the latest version of Android available. The same can be said about AVD Manager and its easy installation of Android 13 on a virtual smartphone. There are other Android emulators, some more efficient like Bluestacks, but they are not as well updated and do not support Android 13 yet.

hardware requirements

To install Android Studio, you need a Windows PC with fairly affordable hardware requirements, except for the RAM part, because like other emulators, it’s quite a RAM eater and He needs everything you can give him:

• CPU x86_64. Intel Core 2nd generation or later; o AMD with Hypervisor support.
• Minimum screen resolution of 1280 x 800 pixels.
• 8 GB of RAM or more.
• 12GB total available disk space for IDE, Android SDK and Android Emulator.
• Windows 8/10/11 64-bit system.

Install Android Studio

Installing Android Studio for the first time can be a little confusing at first, but there are beginner guides to follow where you just need to follow the instructions.

If you will be using Android Studio for development tasks, you must first install it Java JDK and configure the environment to start working on it. The Java Development Kit (JDK) is a package required to build Java-based applications. In addition, it also includes tools for developers to test applications programmed in this language.

It’s simply a matter of downloading the Java JDK for Windows from the Oracle site and installing it. You also need to set up the Java environment so that Android Studio can easily find the location of Java on your computer.

From there, installing Android Studio and the emulator is very simple, access the Android developer site, download and install Android Studio.

Android 13 on PC with AVD Manager

The emulator allows you to do almost all of them basic mobile functions with native installation, such as the installation of third-party applications, Internet browsing or media playback functions. It’s apparently a partially functional tool for experimenting with a full Android installation.

It’s slow compared to a real Android device, and only some devices emulated in AVD Manager are compatible with Google Play Store, but it’s usable for testing or just curiosity. Of course, like any type of virtualization, it needs resources from your computer. If you’re running it on a good PC, give it all you can, especially RAM.

Open AVD Manager and create an Android emulator is done as follows:

• Open Android Studio and go to More Actions > Virtual Device Manager > Create Device.

• You’ll see emulations of phones, tablets, wearables, or TV or car systems available. Select any device from the list, for example Pixel 6 Pro.

• Click the download icon next to the Android 13 codename i.e. Tiramisu. The installer then installs the necessary components for the emulator.
• Select Tiramisu from the list of system images.

• In the options list, you can edit the name of the virtual device and adjust some settings such as screen orientation, CPU cores, memory or storage settings for the emulator.
• Click Finish to finish the setup.
• You can now launch the Android emulator by clicking on the play icon in Device Manager.

AVD manager default settings are too low for Android 13 to work properly. As we said above, we recommend to increase the general configuration, such as RAM and number of cores. You can edit them by clicking the Show advanced settings button.

You can also customize the emulated device by clicking on the three-dot menu and adjusting the advanced controls on it.

You can’t expect blazing performance, and as we said, other emulators like BlueStacks perform better, but this Android Studio AVD Manager is a natural solution for developing or testing Android 13 on PC.