All Articles Tagged browser battle

Android Central has posted up their iPhone 3GS vs. (Motorola) Droid vs. (HTC) Droid Eris, and — spoiler alert!!! — the iPhone 3GS is still king of the browser hill:

Bad news for Droid lovers: the iPhone 3GS beat the heck out of the Droid in the above test. Other tests taken after the video weren’t quite as dramatic as what you’re seeing here, but facts is facts: the iPhone 3GS does load and render pages faster than the Droid.

(It’ll also load pages over 3G while you’re talking on the phone, whereas he CDMA Droids’ effective render speed under those conditions is zero. Multitask that!)

And yes, we’ll boast while we can, because we’re sure as the weekend progresses, the Droids’ will beat the pants off TiPb’s flagship device in other areas…

For now, click the above link, go check out the video, and let us know what you think!

Did Verizon and Motorola forget to include a few things in their iDon’t attack ads, like iDon’t render web pages as slowly or badly, iDon’t arbitrarily restrict the amount of apps users can install to 256MB, iDon’t fail to implement multi-touch, and iDon’t have a worse user experience.

We can’t blame them, of course. They were focusing on the iPhone’s weaknesses, as the geekier among us (nitpickers included!) would have to admit, and not the Droid’s. It was their ad, and fair enough.

However, for those considering the Droid vs. an iPhone, we should lay all the cards on the table. Sure the iPhone lacks a physical keyboard (that irks some users, pleases others), doesn’t have Google Maps Navigation (yet), doesn’t match all the specs, and has issues with App Store approvals (though that doesn’t effect most users). But what about the Droid?

(And no, we don’t mean that horrible devil-red eye graphic that’s kind of the opposite of “not evil” and makes that incessant “DRRROOOOOOIIDDD” chime pretty much indistinguishable from “REDRUM!”)

First, in the perfunctory Browser Battles, it turns out the almost two month old iPhone 3.1 Safari is still king of the mobile mountain, according to MobileCrunch:

On the popular web-standards test known as Acid3, the iPhone scores a 100/100 while the Droid caps out at 93/100. [...] Once you’ve grown accustomed to pinch-zooming, the level of accuracy provided by tap-zooming alone simply doesn’t cut it. [...] The iPhone browser is also considerably faster, with page loads completing anywhere from 15-30% more quickly with both handsets on WiFi.

Second, we all know the Android Market doesn’t have as many apps as the App Store, but maybe that’s a good thing since Android 2.0 still doesn’t fix its app space limitation, leaving Droid with a paltry 256MB for apps according to AndroidandMe.com:

Google does not support installing apps to the SD card (and likely never will), so developers are limited in what they can create. [...] For most applications, we want a small file size to limit the download times. When it comes to 3D games though, we need a ton of space for all the high-res textures, audio, and video. [...] Have you seen all the awesome iPhone and iPod Touch games? Hardly any of them would fit on an Android phone.

This problem, of course, also plagues the Palm webOS and BlackBerry platforms. NokiaExpert and ZDNet’s Matt Miller’s been told it’s a security issue, but does that matter to end users when iPhone’s can go up to (almost) 32GB?

Third, if you’re a fan of the iPhone and iPod touch’s (and Magic Mouse’s!) multi-touch, don’t think the Droid will have your fingers covered. According to Engadget:

As you have probably heard (or guessed), there’s no multitouch on this device. That’s clearly an issue with Android 2.0 and choices that Google is making about user interface

Fourth, the user interface, while definitely an improvement — and maybe even a refreshing change for some — still doesn’t rise to level of usability as the iPhone. Like MobileCrunch (and every other review we’ve seen), we’ve given our iPhones to toddlers and they’ve been able to use them well.

That’s still Apple’s killer app. And that’s likely why, even after going all in on Droid and throwing BlackBerry under the bus (even canceling their BOGO!), Verizon still wants the iPhone…

[Thanks to Tom for the app limit tip!]

No word yet on whether you get a pocket Hasselhoff to push it for you, but it sounds like Opera Mobile 9.7 is set to bring back the “Turbo” boost in an effort to take it to Mobile Safari (and, we presume, WebKit in general as found on the iPhone, Google Chrome lite for Android, Palm Pre, some Nokia devices, etc. etc…. etc…)

Ganging up on the “real internet” browser are our good friends Matt Miller from NokiaExperts.com and Phil Nickinson from WMExperts.com. Matt explains the concept behind Nokia’s blast from the past via his ZDNet blog:

Turbo mode that supplements the native Opera Mobile browser with the proxy functionality found in Opera Mini. So, with Opera Mobile 9.7 and Turbo mode enabled you get a fully functioning web browser with proxy/server side lifting going on to provide the FASTEST browsing experience currently available on a mobile phone.

TiPb vaguely remembers proxy and cache tricks from those old spamvertisements promising to quadruple our old dial-up modem speeds. Phil tries to pip us to the proxy post, however:

Read the rest of this entry »

Kevin just finished launching a metric ton of BlackBerry Storm coverage over on Crackberry.com, including the compulsory unboxing pr0n, bumpy typing test, and an iPhone 3G vs. BlackBerry Storm browser battle. If we recall the last time an iPhone 3G met a BlackBerry (Bold) in single web combat, the buggy Bold caused Kevin himself to throw in the towel.

This time?

The Storm still lacks Javascript chops (attn: RIM, see SquirelFish, Tracemonkey, V8, etc.!) so turns it off by default. The iPhone OS 2.1 browser is a tad crash prone. Fair fight? Well, let’s not forget the Berry’s is likely still itching to brawl over the most recent sales, satisfaction, and reliability figures, b’okay? But it’s the fastest fight Kevin had time for… for now.

The results?

iPhone did better when the Storm had Javascript on, but took a beating and crashed and burned twice when the Storm defaulted to Javascript off (and the iPhone still had it on).

How much of a role was played by the difference in network speed between Verizon’s EVDO rev A and AT&T’s HSDPA we don’t know, and since the Storm completely lacks WiFi, a pure browser test may forever elude us. (Early bird Walt Mossberg claims he got different results in different locations where each network had stronger or weaker signals, of course, but that the iPhone on WiFi was consistently the fastest — we’d add to that WiFi enables all sorts of additional networking features as well, like file exchange and remote control).

In either case, judging by how fast the blogerati have jumped on the Storm wagon, and how often the iPhone is coming up in the coverage, that this rivalry has only just begun!

The iPhone 3G and the Blackberry Bold will certainly be pitted against each other in the days to come, so when we saw a so-called Browser battle between the two, we promptly grabbed our popcorn and got ready to watch the rumble…

…Only to find out it was an original iPhone 2G vs. what looks like a pre-release, buggy-ROM’d, poorly connected Bold. Talk about going from showdown to letdown!

Fellas, it shouldn’t take Joe Silva to tell you what makes for good fights: top competitors in top shape. Take one or both, tranq them up, tie their arm (processors) behind their backs, and kidnap their girlfriends and you don’t have a real fight (though you could have yet another Nicolas Cage movie…)

The Bold debuts in North America this week on Rogers. Seems that very same provider already has the iPhone 3G. So here’s an idea: set them both up, in full release form, on the same network, under the same conditions, and then let’s get it on!