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Speed test comparing iPhone 3G, 3GS, and Palm Pre has surprising results

by Casey Johnston Jun 25th 2009 at 7:15AM


Gadget fans can fight endlessly about which device is faster than which, without resolution or relief. Fortunately for the weary, Medialets has found common ground between a few of the most popular smart phones to use as a racetrack.

According to Medialets, there is a common benchmarkable technology -- JavaScript execution in a WebKit-based browser -- that runs across four of the most popular phones: the iPhone 3G, the iPhone 3GS, the T-Mobile G1 with Android, and the Palm Pre. By running a benchmark test called SunSpider it is possible to obtain a rough speed comparison between all four devices.

The test was run on six different configurations: Safari on the 3G with iPhone OS v2.2.1, the 3G with OS v3.0, and the 3G S with OS v3.0; "Browser" on the T-Mobile G1 with Android OS v1.5; and "Web" on the Palm Pre with Web OS v.10.2, with a run of Safari 4.0.1 on a MacBook used as a baseline. Read on for the graph of the results.After putting the phones through their paces, here's how they measured up:



In rendering this type of script, the 3GS was three times as fast as the 3G (an improvement over Apple's estimate, who quoted the 3GS as being only twice as fast as the 3G). The 3G running OS 3.0 was also nearly three times faster than a 3G running OS 2.2.1. The 3G with OS 3.0 clocked almost exactly the same time as the Palm Pre, and both were about twice as fast as the G1. Not only does this test verify the speed improvements in the 3GS over the 3G, it puts to rest, at least to a certain extent, the idea that most of the 3G S speed bump is because OS 3.0 is designed for the 3GS model's hardware rather than the 3G's.

It is important to note that the test studies the core JavaScript language only, and not the DOM or the other browser APIs. More importantly, this test offers no comparison of how each phone and each OS runs its other native applications; also, Apple might be expected to have an edge in optimizing WebKit, as some of the open-source project's core team members work for Apple on Safari. However, when it comes to browsing the Internet and executing JavaScript among smart phones, there is a clear winner and a few losers.

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Gadget fans can fight endlessly about which device is faster than which, without resolution or relief. Fortunately for the weary, Medialets...
 

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Taran

pretty good comparion. iPhone is slick!
check this aswell. more comparison
http://www.taranfx.com/blog/?p=1330
Palm Pre vs. iPhone 3G S vs. Windows Mobile 6.5 - Feature Comparison

July 04 2009 at 3:55 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
Taran

and i blogged them here.
http://www.taranfx.com/blog/?p=1330

July 04 2009 at 3:45 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
Taran

iPhone 3GS speed is awesome.
I found a comparison of all 3 major industry players
Palm Pre vs. iPhone 3G S vs. WM 6.5 - Feature Comparison Showdown

July 04 2009 at 3:42 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
Chris Hamilton

27.635 seconds with Firefox 2 on a Dual 2.3GHz PowerMac G5. 2.454 seconds on the same machine with Safari 4.0.0 . Seems like this test is designed to make safari look fast, since in real world browsing it really isn't more than 10x faster...

June 26 2009 at 10:49 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
Dave

@TUAW - you know your comment system sucks, don't you? If I post something, then someone replies, I get notified of the reply only if my post isn't a reply to someone else. If I am the originator of the thread, I get notifications even if replies aren't addressed at me.

Also, there's no way to easily see any new additions to the comments on page 1 if you've moved on to page 2 without going back to page 1 and re-reading all comments looking for something new. What a time waster, though I guess it generates more page hits, huh?

Also, how about an RSS feed on the comments so we can monitor a thread without having to come back and look for new comments until they're actually made? Is it he page hit thing?

June 26 2009 at 10:07 AM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
Tyler Whitworth

I love apple, but I really want a pre. I think it is cool.

Hate me if you will.

June 25 2009 at 7:41 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
Hamranhansenhansen

Where are the surprising results? These results don't surprise me at all.

You expect to see JavaScript get faster from the old WebKit JS interpreter (iPhone OS 2.2) to the new WebKit JS interpreter (iPhone OS 3.0). That is not only expected, it's one of the major advertised features of iPhone OS 3.0. The new interpreter is built to be fast.

Not surprising to see that Palm's clone of iPhone 3G also runs the new WebKit just as fast.

With Android, if the G1 hardware is significantly faster than iPhone 3G, then that is the old JS interpreter slowing it down. If the G1 is significantly slower than iPhone 3G, then that is the new interpreter and the hardware is the slowdown.




June 25 2009 at 5:52 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
cary

what about streaming Flash video when it comes in October...oh wait...Apple not supporting Flash in October with all the other phones? hmmm LOL

June 25 2009 at 1:14 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
1 reply to cary's comment
Tom Craft

good. Flash is crap and needs to die. If the lack of Flash on the iPhone makes web developers get off their ass and use HTML5/CSS/XML than I hope Apple continues to sell ridiculous amounts of iPhones.

Now if only the major web browsers would stop supporting Flash in them, the internet would be a much happier place.

June 25 2009 at 2:28 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
supagold

@tekkenshihan

Actually it doesn't tell you that. The "bars" on a cell phone only give you signal strength, when what actually matters is signal to noise ratio (SNR). High signal strength is like yelling, which means you're easy to hear if you're in a quiet room, but not if you crank up the stereo, or if that room is echoing. That's why sometimes you have a crap connection, even if you've got 5 bars.

Also, there's the network infrastructure. If AT&T doesn't have the capacity to support all it's concurrent users, they're going to suffer.

June 25 2009 at 1:12 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
Alex

Now lets see a comparison of trying to find a steady 3g signal

June 25 2009 at 12:26 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
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