I've found the official Intel-based emulator images (2.3+ only) plenty fast. Details here[0] but the tl;dr is:

* Open SDK manager, install Intel image for your preferred SDK version and the "Intel Hardware Accelerated Execution Manager" from the Extras section

* Find the HAXM installer in SDK/extras and run

* Create Intel-based AVD

[0] https://developer.android.com/tools/devices/emulator.html

Agreed. The Intel images turn the emulator into a generally useful tool. If you enable graphics acceleration in the AVD performance is more than good enough for testing the apps I've tried so far.

The emulator does take a while to start but that's a one-time cost.

Don't forget to enable GPU Acceleration too. I've posted about this here: http://codebutler.com/2012/10/10/configuring-a-usable-androi...

Testing inapp billing without a physical device is still my biggest reason staying with the VirtualBox-based approach.

Installing Play Store app on emulator still requires some hacky workarounds.

Just an FYI -- this killed my Virtual Box install the last time i tried it. Uninstalling HAXM fixed it all, but having Virtual Box was more important than the Intel images, so I left it uninstalled.

This issue specifically, and others like it (snapshot management, bugs in the interface to create emulators, such as setting the hw keyboard) really made managing local android emulators a pain for us. We thought we could make the experience better, so we made Manymo.

I didn't know this, I'll try it out, thanks!

Thank you for the link. I'm already up and running. It's much faster than the SDK VM, boots almost instantly. Works perfectly with ADB and is just a pleasure to use.