Best Practices for Testing Apps on Low-End and Mid-Range Devices
If you are building apps for India, testing only on flagship phones is a mistake.
It is an expensive one.
India is one of the most diverse mobile markets in the world. Device prices vary widely, hardware capabilities differ massively, and network quality changes every few kilometres. Yet many teams still test primarily on high-end phones because that is what is available in the office.
Real users live elsewhere.
In this post, I will break down why low-end and mid-range device testing matters, what typically goes wrong, and how to build a practical testing strategy that reflects how users actually experience your app.
Why low-end and mid-range devices matter in India
Let us start with the data.
According to multiple market reports from Counterpoint Research and IDC, over 75 percent of smartphones shipped in India fall into the low-end and mid-range categories. Devices priced below ₹25,000 dominate active usage, especially outside tier-one cities.
These devices typically have:
- Limited RAM, often 3GB to 6GB
- Older CPUs with lower processing power
- Aggressive background app killing
- Slower storage and memory access
- Inconsistent network connectivity
If your app performs well only on premium devices, it will struggle where most of your users actually are.
Google Play Console data consistently shows that crashes and slow performance are among the top reasons for poor ratings and uninstalls. For growth-stage apps, this directly impacts retention and organic acquisition.
Common mistakes teams make when testing on low-end devices
From experience, most issues come down to assumptions.
Mistake 1: Treating emulators as a substitute for real devices
Emulators are useful, but they cannot accurately simulate:
- Memory pressure behaviour
- Thermal throttling
- OEM-specific background restrictions
- Real network instability
Many performance and crash issues only appear on physical hardware. Relying entirely on emulators creates blind spots that surface in production.
Mistake 2: Testing late instead of continuously
Teams often test low-end devices just before release. By then, fixing issues is costly and risky. Performance problems need early visibility to be addressed properly.
Mistake 3: Testing only one “representative” device
There is no single representative low-end device in India. OEM customisations, Android versions, and hardware combinations vary widely.
Best practice 1: Choose devices based on real user data
Start with analytics, not opinions.
Use data from:
- Google Play Console device distribution
- App analytics tools
- Crash reports by device model
Identify:
- Top 10 to 15 devices by active users
- Worst-performing devices by crash rate or ANR rate
This list becomes your baseline test matrix.
NativeBridge allows teams to access a wide range of real low-end and mid-range devices without maintaining their own lab. This makes it easier to align testing with actual user data.
Best practice 2: Focus on memory and resource constraints
Low-end devices struggle most with memory and CPU pressure.
Testing should deliberately stress:
- App startup time under low memory conditions
- Background to foreground transitions
- Multitasking scenarios
- Long session usage
Android’s own documentation highlights memory pressure as a major cause of crashes on budget devices. Testing these scenarios early prevents hard-to-debug production issues.
Run these tests repeatedly on real devices to catch non-deterministic failures.
Best practice 3: Test under real network conditions
Network conditions in India are unpredictable.
Users switch between:
- 4G and 5G
- Wi-Fi and mobile data
- Strong and weak signals
Apps must handle slow networks gracefully.
Best practice includes:
- Testing on throttled and unstable networks
- Verifying retries and timeouts
- Ensuring the app does not freeze or crash during network drops
Real-device testing platforms like NativeBridge capture these behaviours far more reliably than simulators.
Best practice 4: Measure performance, not just functional correctness
Passing functional tests is not enough on low-end devices.
Track and test:
- App launch time
- Screen rendering delays
- Frame drops during scrolling
- Battery consumption over long sessions
Google’s Android performance guidelines suggest that slow startup and UI jank significantly affect user satisfaction and retention.
Performance regressions should be treated as release blockers, not nice-to-have fixes.
Best practice 5: Run tests in parallel to keep cycles short
Testing across multiple low-end devices sounds slow unless it is done in parallel.
Parallel testing allows teams to:
- Validate performance across multiple devices simultaneously
- Reduce test execution time significantly
- Maintain fast release cycles despite broader coverage
Teams using parallel real-device testing through NativeBridge have reduced test turnaround time by up to 70 percent while expanding device coverage.
This balance is critical. Slow testing leads to shortcuts. Shortcuts lead to bugs.
Best practice 6: Integrate low-end device testing into CI/CD
Low-end device testing should not be a manual checklist.
Integrate it into CI/CD so that:
- Critical flows run automatically on budget devices for every build
- Performance regressions are detected early
- Feedback reaches developers quickly
This aligns with DORA research, which shows that faster feedback loops directly correlate with better delivery performance.
NativeBridge integrates directly into CI/CD pipelines, making real-device testing part of daily development rather than a final gate.
Best practice 7: Pay special attention to OEM behaviour
OEM customisations matter.
Devices from Xiaomi, Samsung, Realme, and others behave differently due to:
- Aggressive battery optimisation
- Custom Android skins
- Background process limits
Test how your app behaves when:
- Background services are killed
- Notifications are delayed
- Permissions are revoked unexpectedly
These issues often surface only on specific OEM devices and are a common source of user complaints.
A realistic testing checklist for Indian teams
Here is a simple starting checklist.
- Select 10 to 15 real low-end and mid-range devices based on user data
- Run startup, login, and core flows under memory pressure
- Test unstable network scenarios
- Measure performance metrics, not just pass or fail
- Run all tests in parallel to control execution time
- Integrate everything into CI/CD
This setup covers the majority of real-world failure modes.
My honest take from the field
Most app issues blamed on “bad users” are actually bad assumptions.
Users are not impatient. Their devices are constrained. Their networks are unstable. Their tolerance for slow or broken apps is low.
Testing on low-end and mid-range devices is not extra work. It is the cost of building for reality.
Teams that embrace this early ship more stable apps, earn better ratings, and scale faster without firefighting.
Ready to test where your users really are?
If you want to test your app on real low-end and mid-range devices without building and maintaining a physical lab, start a free trial on NativeBridge.
Run parallel tests. Catch performance issues early. Ship with confidence.
👉 Start your free NativeBridge trial today