I've been using BrowserStack for a while now.   The way the tool works is
that you are actually using virtual machines, so it's not really emulation.
 They give 30 minutes of trial usage away, so you can easily get a good
idea of how it works.  I think I made 30 minutes last a few months.

Also, Adobe Edge Inspect <http://html.adobe.com/edge/inspect/> (formerly
Shadow) is a nice tool for testing and designing on mobile.

-Charlie

On Thu, Jan 3, 2013 at 10:05 AM, Josh Wilson <[log in to unmask]> wrote:

> While there are a lot of good tools that will get you most of the way
> towards simulating different browsers and windows, I think there's no
> substitute for checking whatever actual devices you have available. I can't
> speak to browserstack specifically, but with other tools I used when
> developing a responsive design (good compendium here, btw:
>
> http://www.netmagazine.com/features/50-fantastic-tools-responsive-web-design
> ),
> I found that I could get things looking and behaving right in a simulation,
> only to see them behave differently when I looked at an actual device. Not
> any drastic differences in my case, but little styling things I'd
> overlooked and gotten away with in the simulation turned out to affect
> things in practice.
>
> Josh
>
>
> On Thu, Jan 3, 2013 at 9:15 AM, Keith Jenkins <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
>
> > Does anyone here have any experience with browser emulators such as
> > BrowserStack?  http://www.browserstack.com/
> >
> > If so, have you come across any significant differences between the
> > emulators and the real thing?
> >
> > Keith
> >
> >
> > On Wed, Jan 2, 2013 at 5:34 PM, Ron Gilmour <[log in to unmask]>
> wrote:
> > > Ideally, of course, one would have a mobile device lab
> > > <
> >
> http://mobile.smashingmagazine.com/2012/09/24/establishing-an-open-device-lab/
> > >
> > > where one could test a site on all kinds of devices, but that's not
> > likely
> > > at a small college library.
> >
>