iPhone vs. BlackBerry Bold Browser Showdown Part Tres
Here’s the backstory to what you’re looking at, above: Mobile Computing posted up a video showing that the iPhone 3G obliterated the BlackBerry Bold in a download & render test of web browsers (We just covered this, oh, hours ago). Fun stuff, except as our friends at CrackBerry noted (and MC added too) – it wasn’t a fair fight. The Bold probably wasn’t actually using WiFi and also most of the Bolds out there have pre-release ROMS on them, so the finals might be a stitch faster.
So a loyal CB reader pitched in and posted a video of the Bold loading the same page again, but this time actually using WiFi, it came in a little bit faster.
At TiPb, though, we figured it still looked slow. But since the Bold probably had a pre-release OS on it, we figured we’d hobble the iPhone 3G as well. So above, Loyal Moderator Bad Ash pits the BlackBerry Bold on WiFi against the iPhone 3G on EDGE.
Yeah, it’s closer, but we’re still ahead by 4 seconds or so. Tie the iPhone 3G’s WiFi hand behind its back, fine. Tie it’s 3G hand back there too, fine. The iPhone 3G still seems to win out — and we look forward to being able to say that about the final Bold ROM too. Hey — you guys still have (slightly) more reliable push email, so there’s that.
August 22nd, 2008 at 9:46 am
As a blackberry user, I am not ashamed to say that our browsers kind of suck. You have to give apple props for having things like webkit.
August 22nd, 2008 at 10:53 am
@Bad Ash: Mad props! That’s an awesome vid! (Sorry Kevin, but as Dieter said, you’ll always have email…)
@Aaron: WebKit is open source, and Nokia, Google, and Adobe all make use of it as well, so there’s no reason why Blackberry couldn’t theoretically implement based on WebKit (and the upcoming ultra-fast Squirrelfish javascript engine as well).
Otherwise, it’s always a math game where overall speed = connection speed + render engine speed + device processor/display speed (crunching+ pixel pushing power)
August 22nd, 2008 at 11:07 am
@Rene: I was reading all the comments on crackberry I could not take it anymore, had to make a video of my own. Pre-production model or no… Bold = SLOW.
August 22nd, 2008 at 11:51 am
Scoreboard iphone wins the browser war. If we are talking about seconds and if the pages look render relatively the same then to me what’s the diff
August 22nd, 2008 at 11:56 am
@Albert: In this video the iPhone beat it by around 4 seconds using EDGE while the the Bold was using it’s WiFi. I also have videos of the iPhone uses WiFi and it beat the Bold by 37 seconds… But what would be the fun of posting a video like that?
August 22nd, 2008 at 2:57 pm
@Bad Ash Good form Peter…. good form.
August 23rd, 2008 at 6:02 pm
Enough’s enough, already! The Bold is NOT an iPhone-like smartphone, nor should it be thought of as such. The Bold isn’t even marketed to the same audience.
From what I’ve read, and it’s ALL conjecture until its release, supposedly October 13, is the Blackberry Thunder (or Storm or 9530) was designed using webkit. And, according to a number of reports, the screen resolution is far better than the iPhone. And, according to a number of reports, the location-specific haptic feedback on the touch-screen BB blows away the iPhone. And, don’t forget that both sides will ultimately claim their’s is better.
Everyone I know with an iPhone 3G is disappointed that the 3G is flaky, and often seems useless. A few techies have gone so far as to point out that Apple didn’t design hardware adequately to support the 3G, leaving their phones very buggy. I’m sure there’ll be just as many complaints about the new BB, but I’m still going that route. BB still does what I need it to better than Apple…maybe one day that’ll change?
August 23rd, 2008 at 11:11 pm
Well, as you maybe saw n800 eats both with bread
And I don’t think you’ll like to compare loading times thru EDGE or anything else 
August 24th, 2008 at 1:02 am
@ram: You know what? I could care less honestly about comparing the two… but… BB users responded to a video that was posted so I thought why not… and responded to a Crackberry users video.
And now you know someone who is happy with the 3g performance. Me. It’s great in Chicago.
August 25th, 2008 at 10:13 pm
Does anyone, can anyone get 1mb/sec dl speed? anyone?
August 29th, 2008 at 11:25 am
@Lawrence
Yes, all of the time. http://forum.theiphoneblog.com/apple-iphone-3g/166744-how-fast-slow-your-3g-speed.html
September 5th, 2008 at 2:07 pm
My free Sony W910i with Opera Mini beats both of them
September 7th, 2008 at 11:21 pm
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January 25th, 2009 at 9:46 pm
My Sony x1 beats them both anyway but the iPhone is more like a toy and the bold is for adults just not the same to compair.