Folks at Ars Technica and Engadget carried out some tests to find out whether Android 2.2 Froyo’s browser is faster than iOS 4’s Mobile Safari browser.
They carried out the tests on Google’s Nexus One and Apple’s iPhone 4 to find out which one is the world’s fastest mobile browser. If you’re an Apple/iPhone fanboy then you will be surprised by the results.
Ars Technica carried out SunSpider and V8 benchmark tests to find out the JavaScript performance of the mobile browsers. Ars Technica reports:
The results show that the Android device delivers significantly faster JavaScript execution than the iPhone, scoring over three times better on V8 and almost twice as fast on SunSpider.
Engadget were not satisfied with just the JavaScript performance tests so they carried out some tests to find out real-life performance of these browsers. Engadget observed that:
Out of the five desktop-version websites that we tested for load time, three of them — BBC News, gdgt and The Onion — repeatedly produced a tie between the two phones, whereas the iPhone 4 consistently loaded Engadget about two to three seconds faster, and the Nexus One about one to two seconds faster with New York Times.
You can also checkout the video of the test:
Engadget then carried out some tests by uninstalling Flash from Nexus One to see if there was any performance improvement.
Turns out it's a small yes — this time the Nexus One consistently loaded Engadget, New York Times, gdgt and The Onion a tad quicker than the iPhone 4, whereas BBC News produced a tie. Still, this is far from the massive performance jump that Ars Technica's benchmarks suggest (not that we're saying the site did it wrong; these every-day sites just don't rely heavily on JavaScript), but considering Froyo running Flash still matches iOS 4's Safari loading speed, Android's just about won this two-man race.
You can checkout the video of the test:
So even though Engadget tests show that Android Froyo’s browser is slightly faster than iOS 4’s Mobile Safari browser it must be noted that Google has made significant performance improvements in Android 2.2 (Froyo) compared to the previous version of Android. Ars Technica points out:
SunSpider and V8 benchmarks show that JavaScript execution in Froyo's Web browser is almost three times faster than in the previous version of the platform.
We expected iOS 4 on Apple’s iPhone 4 to blow away competition but Google has surprised us by taking the title of the fastest mobile browser.
We’ll have to wait and see how Apple responds as it now has an incentive to make the iPhone and iOS even better (not that it needed one), which is always a good thing for us as customers.
Please don’t forget to drop us a line to give us your reaction to these test results.
[via Ars Technica, Engadget]
