We've already seen the iPhone 3GS
handily win an ARM Cortex A8-powered browsing bakeoff against the Palm Pre, but now that a few more devices have hit the scene with the processor it's time for another round, don't you think? Pocketables certainly does, and they've pitted the 3GS against a pretty eclectic group of devices, including the
Sharp NetWalker Android "smartbook," the
Archos 5 IMT, and the
Archos 5 Android PMP. That's two Android devices, one funky proprietary OS, and the iPhone, all running different browsers on different variants of the same chip design, so there are obviously a lot of variables at play here, but the results are still interesting: the 800MHz Android Archos 5's WebKit browser was just a tick faster than the 600MHz iPhone 3GS, turning in an average page-load time of 9.0 seconds as opposed to 9.6, while the 800MHz NetWalker and 600MHz Archos 5 IMT trailed at 10.3 and 11.6 seconds. All we're taking away from that is that WebKit-based mobile browsers still seem to be the speed champs, but we're sure you have a different opinion.
posted Oct 27th 2009 2:46PM
I hope an 800mhz tablet would be faster than a phone
Did you try Atom netbooks?
It's the same proc the iPhone uses...
Plus the iPhone 3GS is supposed to be snappy and Fast. at least that's what Apple says in all the advertising they've been pouring all around the world on 99% of the techblogs and all the major TV networks.
So No I don't think this is a useless statement.
Oh ans the "S" in 3GS guess what it stands for ?
[hint : it's not Suck]
Why IE browser is not in the list? Is it because WinMo has demised? Or
because IE has decided to play in the minor league?
I would hope there was more of a difference, actually. For whatever reason (probably related to the multiple layers of software in between the web and the processor), the 3GS is achieving almost 94% of the Archos 5's page loading speed with only 75% of the clock speed. (Mind you, you have to jailbreak the sucker to get real use out of it, but still...)
@Félix: you must not have read the article, because it says the Android Archos 5 has an 800MHz processor, while the 3GS has a 600MHz processor. Give the iPhone an 800MHz processor and it would probably be on top again.
A whole .4 of second on average. Wow! Archos is the king of internet swing. At least one or two people are going to give up their iPhones for some Archos tablet....NOT.
Nice work to pocketables for featuring this comparison. The competition is pretty tight huh between this two "beasts". Suddenly, I remember the video ad campaign ran by Motorola-Verizon for its Droid Phone. Now, some iPhone junkies created a video spoof to counter the Droiddoes video. If you forgot the details, I have this source link:
http://pinoytutorial.com/techtorial/verizon-launches-anti-iphone-marketing-campaign-droiddoes/
Enjoy!
Did this test take into account the ammount of time it takes to reboot your Archos 10x, to get to said pages? Or does the 2 months it spend in it's so called "RMA" department, count towards these times? Because My buddy tried to get to ESPN and the Archos just crashed over and over and now is sitting in the RMA department. So by his estimate, ESPN's website is at about 4 weeks and running for a load time.. wonderful products...
Yes, cause a select few fail means that every device is like that
/sarcasm
Hey did you hear iPhone 3GS's overheat?
Windows Blue Screens.
OSX SL deletes files
PS2's died a lot back in the day
360's have RROD
Pre's split apart
Oh yea, SHIT HAPPENS.
I'm so far having a really good experience with mine! It was crashing all the time then I update it and Im very satisfied. I did read so many real bad reviews and because of the screen size decided to give a try since my main interest was to watch youtube video, web browsing and PDF files. plus any other site that offers flash video download option i can watch.
Uh, this is the Archos 5, not 10x.
@ Missionsparta
You DO realize that this isn't a device running Archos's old OSs right?
Archos Android is pretty neat. Love it. Listening to Taylor Swift right now... Love the archos almost as much as T Swift. Its a close call.
Geez engadget, why does it take so long to load your page?
Because the tubes are full.
The comments.
justin.m.beasley = Win
they're a owned by AOL
Since they are owned by AOL they ran out of the free trial of 10,000 hours of free dial-up.
If I hadn't heard so many stories about Archos products I would be more interested. I take it that the 200Mhz that the Archos has over the iPhone really doesn't make too much of a difference when it comes to web browsing.
I thought it was the same processor? doesnt apple under-clock it?
Oohh... men, I could of done so much more in that second...
Shit adds up.
Yeah... what he said. See, after browsing for three hours, you could have built up just over 30 seconds of free time. Think of the possibilities!!!
@uwaga dude is my hero. xoxo
@uwaga
I don't understand your calculation:
9.6/9=1.067 is a percentage.
It should be:
0.6sec/website X 1000 websites/week=600sec/week
600 X 52=31200sec/year
which is 520min
which is approx 8.66 hours
And you can't be paid 22$/hour for a job similar to "sitting and browsing the net", it will be more like 10$
Meaning you get 86.6$/year
@Atkins
I think he was referring to any job in general would pay that much. If you could point me in the direction of a job that pays $10 an hour for surfing the web, please do so!
@Mjayhunt
If there was such a job I would've taken it already :) got your point
Anyway, I think that 8.6h over year is not that much, especially if you consider that you will probably watch some stupid movies, oversleep at least a few times, even maybe watch TV (well, that's an extreme), and do some other useless stuff like writing comments on Engadget, which all will amount to more than 8.6 hours a week. Better start optimizing your life than your phone.
It's funny because they're phones, that also use the internet, can render web pages, take photos, videos, have touchscreens, and that we're reading a comparison (on the internet) about how one phone loads .6 seconds faster than the other.
Only one of these is a phone.
Yeah, that's the first thing i noticed on my Archos tablet, web browsing experience is SWEEET!!!! I hardly have to zoom anything. love the pixelation density.
none of them supports flash?
Android gets Flash just like other platforms (except for the iPhone) next year.
Maybe the iPhone had a lot of stuff running in the background.
what you did there, I see it
LOL, if only the iPhone could run more than 1 thing at a time.
Face.....meets palm.
iPhone still wins in my mind.
In mine too ;)
"la la la la, I can't hear you" FTW.
doesn't take much to satisfy the simple minded.
I am a happy longtime Archos customer and am impressed by the A5A but I can't bring myself to plunk down the cash until I see what Dell and Apple have planned in the next few months.
Ha, You know I've being thinking like that for 3 years now. I'm so mad at stupid apple. until I decided for this Archos android. I even forgot about freedom when I was stucked with apple, I can, download, copy, move , rename, files on the archos. Its my first archos device after years of apple and I don't miss the iPod.
Hows does that 3GS when you try browsing while listening to Pandora? Oh, yeah, forgot, it can't do that...
Pre FTW
Pre is yesterday's news. And you know it, Jim.That's why you're so hung up on the iphone
You've probably got small girly fingers. That's why the Pre suits you so well.
There's an App for That
Sure you can. Jailbreak + Backgrounder.
my iphone can multitask!. and it would kill your pre!
i run many heavy apps in the backround. such as jazzfm, tomtom europe, safari, and many extensions with no lag or slow downs. how many apps can your pre run at the same time? well if my iphone can run upto 50 apps, and then it starts to lag
Nice win for Archos, though the browser and the processor probably had more to do with it than the tablet itself. Still, I wouldn't blame them if they choose to brag about this. Faster is faster.
Processor plus software, not much left, right?
The 3GS really acquits itself well despite being 200 MHz less than the Archos 5 PMP. I'm assuming that none of the Android devices are multitasking during the test, since that would impact performance negatively. Going forward it looks like iPhone OS may even have a slight speed/UI edge on similar hardware. It's because of that speed, and the perception that comes with it, that I think Apple will be slow to introduce unfettered multitasking.
WebOS? Probably faster.
then it may make iPhone look as slow browser, and no body wants that..
Bullllllshiiiit!
Opera 9 in Archos 5 IMT supports Flash, others don't (not sure about this NetWalker thingy).
So unless someone shows proves that Flash was disabled in Opera, this test is useless.
Shuuuuuussshhh
The iPhone doesn't support the flash yet so for the moment "it doesn't exist and/or is not relevant to the Web"
Because if it was it would be in the iPhone since it has "the best of the Web".
Pretty simple FFS ! Think before typing nonsense!
Who cares about Flash? HTML 5 FTW. Flash is old, clunky, and barely usable even on a desktop.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bjgXnMVMimg
Yeah, the the internet internet!
Plus the iPhone is doing you a favour by not loading all those ads and stuff.
@pika
Just because something is "better", doesn't mean it automatically replaces the standard. Flash lives. Deal with it.
What the hell are you all talking about?
You can't compare browser speeds when one browser loads all flash content (ads, etc.) and rest don't. Or of course you can compare but then you're an idiot.
Flash may be clunky, old, barely usable etc. but that's not the freaking point. Loading flash objects takes time thus e.g. CNET loads slower in Opera thus results are fucked up thus I'm right you're not thus I win.
If you want to benchmark things make sure you're doing it properly! Benchmarks and statistics is a science. You cannot do benchmarks unless you know that Safari (or WebKit) fires onload event before layout (unlike for an example Opera) etc. Or once again, you can do benchmarks but all they prove is that you're incapable of doing browser benchmarking and should be banned from teh internets.
Nilay, I think you made a mistake in the article. You said "one funky propriety OS" and "iPhone OS". A little bit redundant, don't ya think?
It's hard to really compare and understand why one is faster than the other without understanding what the differences are between the SoC's. They may all use Cortex A8's, but there are probably huge differences between individual components like DMA controllers and such. It would be cool if there was an ArsTehnica-type that delved into the differences to try to explain performance differences.
At first I was a bit bummed my iPhone has been proven to be inferior, then I looked at 60% of the websites benchmarked:
amazon? There's an app for that.
Flickr? There's an app for that.
MySpace? There's an app for that.
NY Times? There's an app for that.
Twitter? There's an app for that.
YouTube? There's an app for that.
As much as you would like to think you invalidated the article, ya didn't.
Next!
well, considering i'm unlikely to use Safari to access 60% of the websites they benchmarked, I don't really care how fast they load, especially compared to other devices which dont even compete with the iPhone. As someone mentioned earlier, I'd expect an 800mhz tablet to beat an cell phone. That said, it didn't beat it by much.
Google voice... there should've been an app for that.
Google latitude.... there should've been an app for that.
To be honest, this article has a dash of flamebait. I think it's just here to prove how badly iPhone fans try to spin this, like missionsparta up there (LMFAO btw)
But yes, this is an 800mhz tablet, So thou hast a point.
you know what i would do if i found out some news like this? i'd jump off a cliff. you should do that...like, now...
N900 - what spin? The tablet is 200MHz faster than the iPhone. That's called a FACT. If you think that has nothing to do with the rendering speed, you're in denial. But for an accurate test we would have to test them at the same clock speed, wouldn't we? But since we can't, it seems pretty obvious that faster clock speed = faster rendering. Even if it's just barely faster.
All I see, is that NYT's website is bloated, and engadget is getting there.
The Archos should be more than a "tick" faster if it's 200Mhz faster.
I have a P4@3.06 Ghz ... I can tell you it's really slow than my intel quad core@ 2,8Ghz on almost anything...
Consider the Archos is displaying 2.5x more pixels on a 2x larger screen. That also counts for something. So it's like the Archos with a 1280x1080 19" screen loading websites still faster than iPod Touch on a 800x600 15" screen.
Seriously, the Archos loads the whole width of all websites where you can read everything and don't need to scroll horizontally at any point. That saves you a lot more time as well.
What does this mean? This means that webkit is the fastest mobile browser, and safari is based on webkit. The 0.6 seconds difference is trivial. Headline should say: Eat you hear out Opera. :P
that means that if you use this device your whole life that you should be able to read 22% more then the average opera user so and when you die one day in the far away future you'll be at least 22% then the opera users ;-)
No, at no point is it said that Flash was disabled in Opera.
If it wasn't then it's not a real comparison, because one is loading flash and the others are not.
And while I don't like Flash, it makes no difference because it may have still been loaded.
See that Opera? That's why you suck. Build a better browser and stop whining to the EU.
You (and Engadget) seem to have missed that Opera actually loaded the Flash elements on the pages.
Surely it makes a significant difference, don't you think?
This means that the Archos 5 Android tablet with Webkit takes 93.75% of the time the iPhone does. In other words it saves you 6.25% of the time to load the page. I don't think many people are going to notice this difference. A page that loads in 10 seconds on the iPhone, will load in 9.375 seconds on the Archos 5. Clearly the iPhone has been bested but I think that this factor is not a big deal because it probably wins in portability; all Archos gadgets can lose some weight. Everything taken into consideration, it shows that an OS plays a major role in how fast a device performs. This is why my eyes are fixed on Windows 7 right now since I use Vista.
Archos displays the full width of the websites, that is a huge plus for quickly browsing around websites.
Seriously, take up an Archos 5 Internet Tablet next to an iPod Touch, and you will see that Archos is a huge difference.
And nope, a 1cm thickness and 182gr in weight, the Archos is actually not heavy or bulky at all. It is thinner, more compact and lighter than most wallets or passports and so it fits nicely in most pockets.
Come one people, the big news here is not who is the fastest, This just proves Android is getting better and better, if we compare how's is it evolving in against Apple's mobile OSX they are doing a very good job.
just another senseless and pointless benchmark. I always wondered what will toast my bread faster my toaster or my oven ; I guess my oven will beat my toaster by 0.1345 seconds...
wanna do a benchmark you do with the same speed processor, you can not say in the title the "what ever type" beat "which ever brand" when there is a difference of 200mhz. if you look again @ the numbers the 600Mzh iPhone beat the other 2 contenders "600 AND 800 MHZ" so imagine if it was 800MHZ like the webkit. I am not a fanboy but we should be objective in presenting things, especially that we have concretes to test 600mhz vs 800mhz. compare apple to apple not to bananas "oops.... :-D"
Archos provides a much faster browsing experience, not only in page loading times, but in overall experience at 800x480 4.8" vs. 480x320 3.5".
There is a 9 out of 10 chance that the difference between the iPhone and Android is an accidental, random effect.
Working:
http://spreadsheets.google.com/ccc?key=0AqHd5b7un9rgdHQyN0owYXZOOHVtQUFnY09oMG9PaEE&hl=en
"But yes, this is an 800mhz tablet, So thou hast a point."
Wait what was I in denial about again?
I must be in denial about proper commenting *sigh*
Umm... what did the Android run on? A phone? Which one? If not, what hardware did it run on?
Or did I miss it?
Goodnight kid
One important point that has not been taken into account is these devices' screen resolution.
The iPhone has a 320x480 screen, so 1,536,000 pixels.
Both Archos 5 have 800x480 screens, so 3,840,000 pixels (2.5 times what the iPhone has).
The Sharp Netwalker has a 1024x600 screen, so 6,144,000 pixels (4 times what the iPhone has, 1.6 times what the Archos 5s have).
The Netwalker does pretty well, since it runs a full-blown desktop operating system with a browser known for being a little bit on the slow side, while pumping a pretty huge number of pixels.
The iPhone needs a little bit more optimization for the rendering I suppose.
Anyhow, a maybe more relevant test would have been to copy the pages on a computer and serve them over WiFi to the devices.
LOL, you added a zero to all your calculations. 153,600 not 1,536,000 and so on... Number of pixels displayed has very very little to do with rendering speed, due to the architecture of the Cortex A8 SoC.
Sweet results.
Out of all the sites, why did Android pull Google News slower? You need to make some tweaks for your own sites!
"one funky proprietary OS"??? The Sharp NetWalker runs Ubuntu 9.04 for ARM chips. How is that a "funky proprietary OS"? You can download the source code for free and programs and commands are just a google search away and will be the same as the ones that people have already been using for 4 years on their Ubuntu laptops and desktops.....
Wow! .6 of a second faster on average. I guess I'll have to pay two early termination fees, sell my iPhones, buy two new phones, reprogram everything and enjoy my new found speed. What a crock!
No need to pay $2000 or more over 2-year contract with the Archos 5 Internet Tablet, it's $249 MSRP for the 8GB version and that is it.
opera 10, w/ turbo would probably best all of them...
Ok so after reading this article should we all trade In our iPhones for archos??
Not happening.
NetWalker isn't an Android device. It's coming with Ubuntu UNR 9.04 with Desktop version of Firefox.