Nexus S Beats iPhone 4 In 'Real World' Web Browsing Tests

bongey writes "In a series of measured real-world web load tests, the Android-based Nexus S phone spanked the iPhone 4. The Android phone and iPhone 4 median load times were 2.144s and 3.254s respectively. The sample size was 45,000 page loads, across 1000 web sites. It also follows rumors that Apple is intentionally slowing down web apps to make their native apps more favorable."

Comments

Or...

[The Grim Reefer2]

Maybe they weren't holding the iPhone correctly.

Bogus

[Anonymous Coward]

They were using a custom app. Not the default browser. So what they are saying is that their app runs faster on the Nexus S. Not that the Nexus S is faster then the iPhone.

Re:Bogus

[coldfarnorth]

First, read the article written by the folks who did the test: http://www.blaze.io/uncategorized/mobile/iphone-vs-android-45000-tests-prove-whose-browser-is-faster/

Here, they address this point. First, they compared their app's times with Safari's times, and found no noticeable difference. Second, they point out that javascript performance accounts for a small fraction of the load times (see large yellow box at the top of the page), and if Nitro was not in use, they estimate that using it would improve Safari's load times, but would not dramatically change the results.

Re:Bogus

[molnarcs]

Actually, before buying my NEXUS ONE, I looked up quite a few comparison's on youtube. They were pretty much matched, but it some tests the Nexus was faster. In one particular test, by the time the iPhone4 loaded the homepage of the review sites, on the Nexus it was already loaded and a flash video playing. The difference still was just around 1 second, which is not the end of the world of course, but noticeable enough. I concluded that for web browsing, the Nexus is as good or slightly better as the iPhone. And remember, I'm talking about the Nexus One that came out 4 months before the iPhone4. So I do believe there might be something to this... and yeah, I've been a very happy Nexus owner since then. It's longevity is superb - still can't find anything that tops it. I mean yeah, there are better and faster phones out there right now, but I couldn't find a single compelling feature that would prompt me to buy a new phone for the foreseeable future.

Re:Bogus

[Anonymous Coward]

First, read the article written by the folks who did the test: http://www.blaze.io/uncategorized/mobile/iphone-vs-android-45000-tests-prove-whose-browser-is-faster/

Here, they address this point. First, they compared their app's times with Safari's times, and found no noticeable difference.

Nothing in your link supports this. Their update (http://www.blaze.io/business/embeded-browser-vs-native-browser/) basically admits that they ran a flawed test, and blames Apple for optimizing its browser.

Second, they point out that javascript performance accounts for a small fraction of the load times (see large yellow box at the top of the page), and if Nitro was not in use, they estimate that using it would improve Safari's load times, but would not dramatically change the results.

JavaScript is not the only difference between safari and an embedded web renderer. Safari has different caching and multithreading as well.

Re:Bogus

[iluvcapra]

Here, they address this point. First, they compared their app's times with Safari's times, and found no noticeable difference.

To go to the trouble of testing the thing with their own app, then testing Safari, publishing the numbers for their own app and not publishing the benchmark for Safari seems obtuse in the extreme. Just tell us the numbers you got for the browser.

Second, they point out that javascript performance accounts for a small fraction of the load times (see large yellow box at the top of the page), and if Nitro was not in use,

A web browser renders content and loads it as well as executing stuff; javascript is only one part of the whole operation and only pertains to certain use cases.

they estimate that using it would improve Safari's load times, but would not dramatically change the results.

Why estimate when they can just run a benchmark on the actual browser, instead of handwaving?

Re:Bogus

[iluvcapra]

I think you don't understand the problem. The headline is "Android's browser is faster than iPhone's browser," but all they ever tested was:

The measurement itself was done using the custom apps, which use the platform’s embedded browser. This means WebView (based on Chrome) for Android, and UIWebView (based on Safari) for iPhone.

UIWebView is not Safari, and neither WebView nor UIWebView are "browsers."

Apple/Oranges

[beanball75]

Someone pointed out already that the way they tested is with apps that use the browser engine available to apps. As the second link says in the main story (probably, I'm too lazy to RTFA, I read others already), the iOS browser engine doesn't use the Nitro javascript engine.

I found one link that discusses it, but I'm sure there are better ones:

http://www.informationweek.com/news/personal-tech/smart-phones/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=229301178

That's nice.

[DWMorse]

That's nice.

Now, how quickly does it play Netflix movies? What's it's Hulu Plus app like, does it work nicely?

You don't say.

Seriously, for shame. I really do want an Android phone. It just isn't as functional yet. Another year or two of maturity and I think I'll finally get to switch.

Re:Meh

[SwabTheDeck]

Isn't the iPhone's A4 CPU supposedly some hundred MHz slower than the the one in the Nexus S, giving it better battery life? I don't think this has anything to do with strangling web apps, just different design goals.

The iPhone 4 is 777 MHz while the Nexus S is 1 GHz. Both are based on the ARM Corext-A8 and both have 512 MB of RAM. Given the difference in CPU speed, the results of the page load tests don't seem far departed from what would be expected. While the Nexus S is still proportionally a little faster, it isn't so wildly so that it can't be attributed to some minor tweaks in the OS or browser software. Using the term "spanked" seems a bit sensationalist in this instance.

Re:Android/iPhone UI performance

[Digicaf]

This has a lot to do with hardware acceleration in the GUI, which for the most part isn't there in any Android below 2.3. I bought my Droid 2 last september and noticed exactly what you mention. In 2.3, that's no longer true. It feels MUCH smoother. In fact, my wife went out a month ago and picked up a low end device (with 2.3) that has a much better response rate and feel despite having a processor only half as fast.

How Do I Moderate an Entire Article as Flamebait?

[macs4all]

Really, this is pretty much a new low in comment-baiting for Slashdot.

This so-called "test" is so utterly and completely unscientific as to be not worth the service space it is stored on.

Period.

It's supposed to be NEWS for Nerds, and this hardly qualifies. And, not content to troll on its own, the summary has to link to ANOTHER Flamebait summary to "support" its "point".

Note to Slashdot: You can do better than this; so DO it already!

Well... no.

[joh]

First, Apple isn't "intentionally slowing down web apps to make their native apps more favorable." They have added a new JS interpreter (actually a just-in-time JS compiler) to Safari, but not to the "normal" web views that other apps can embed. This means only Safari is faster now, others are as fast as before.

Second, this test is flawed since it does not use Safari. It uses a custom app which uses neither the new JS engine nor the better caching of Safari or asynchronous multithreading.