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

Posted by timothy on from the yeah-but-those-are-only-real-world-results dept.

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."

10 of 260 comments (clear)

  1. Or... by The+Grim+Reefer2 · · Score: 4, Funny

    Maybe they weren't holding the iPhone correctly.

  2. Bogus by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Interesting

    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.

    1. Re:Bogus by coldfarnorth · · Score: 4, Informative

      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.

      --
      Lets start refering to The War Against Terror by it's initials. . .
    2. Re:Bogus by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

      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.

    3. Re:Bogus by iluvcapra · · Score: 4, Informative

      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."

      --
      Don't blame me, I voted for Baltar.
  3. Apple/Oranges by beanball75 · · Score: 5, Interesting

    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

  4. That's nice. by DWMorse · · Score: 4, Insightful

    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.

    --
    There's a spot in User Info for World of Warcraft account names? Really?
  5. Re:Meh by SwabTheDeck · · Score: 4, Insightful

    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.

  6. How Do I Moderate an Entire Article as Flamebait? by macs4all · · Score: 4, Insightful

    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!

  7. Well... no. by joh · · Score: 5, Informative

    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.