If you find the android emulator a slow and your system runs on an Intel® cpu, you can check out HAXM. HAXM let's you leverage your hardware for virtualization accelerating the emulator.
- To install HAXM open the Android SDK Manager, you will find the package under Extras.
- You can find all relevant documentation on Intel's website
- This will require an x86 emulator image
- Use Intel's package to install HAXM; The Android SDK Manager appears to not do so successfully.