With the rapidly increasing popularity and complexity of mobile apps, you need to make sure your app works as intended across varioustest devicemodels, operating systems, and browsers. But with tens of thousands of mobile device models on the market and more being released every year, how do you choose which devices to test on, and how many do you actually need to test on for comprehensive testing coverage? In this article, well provide best practices for selecting mobile test device, as well as our recommended devices to test on by region and business size.
Manual Testing vs. Automated Testing
Deciding between manual testing and automated testing is the first step in choosing the right devices for testing. Manual testing is the most common form of mobile testing. It involves a multi-sensory approach that focuses on the user experience of your app. Humans use your app to test both how the user interface (UI) looks and how the interactive components feel. Automated testing is a single-sense approach where a mobile test automation framework like Selenium, Appium, XCUITest, or Espresso runs test scripts that look for specific functional issues. Test automation is useful when you are running complicated, repetitive tests that are prone to error.
There are benefits to each testing method. While manual testing may be more time-consuming than automated testing, you can get more specific, detailed feedback on user experience-related issues like performance, battery life, and usability. Humans are also better than computers at identifying certain issues, such as whether buttons on the screen overlap or are in the wrong place. However, if maximizing efficiency and cost-effectiveness is important to you, we recommend including test automation in your strategy. It will enable you to run tests more quickly and release new versions of your app more frequently.
When selecting devices for manual testing, a general best practice is to include a high-end model, a low-end model, and a tablet (depending on your app) in your test device mix. For iOS, this could look like testing on the following: one high-end iPhone (e.g., iPhone 13), one low-end iPhone (e.g., iPhone SE 2022/iPhone 8), and an iPad. For Android, like with iOS, a good practice is to focus on a popular device brand like Samsung and start with a high-end and low-end device. To get better brand coverage, you could add other top brands like Huawei and Xiaomi to your device selection. Similarly, including Google Pixel devices can give you a head start with testing the latest Android beta versions.
