Browser speed comparison - N86, N97, iPhone 3G, T-Mobile G1 and more

[slitchfield]

In this major feature, Rafe Blandford compares the relative performance of web browsers on various mobile devices, including the Nokia N95 8GB, Nokia E71, Nokia E75, Nokia N86 8MP, Nokia N97, Nokia 5800, T-Mobile G1, and Apple iPhone 3G. Which mobile device has the fastest browser? The results may surprise you - they did me.

Read on in the full article.

[RogerPodacter]

My 5800 matches my android G1 and roommates iphone stride for stride wehn web browsing. i use the same router, all phones on wifi, 20Mbps connection. and the 5800 completes the page loading similar to the other phones. and you can scroll instantly as well. these people that say the s60 browser is slow are not based in reality. i'm not surprised by these results at all.

is the iphone 3g you used running OS 3.0??? you forgot to mention it

Which version of the OS was the iphone 3G using as 3.0 OS isn't the same browser as the 2.x

You actually showed also one of the main problems of Nokia's S60: Once the phones are sold the companies barely care about the phones or just keep bugfixing. The main advantage of the iPhone is that even the first 2G iPhones got the new firmware. And also Android seems to follow this "updates for all" model. Nokia cared only for its high-end phones (especially the N95 and all its incarnations), but forgot to update its mid range (e.g. N71) which is actually not that old. I am willing to pay for updates, if they exist in first place.

It was an Iphone 3G,right? No 3Gs?! Why? You are comparing new Nokia devices with an "old" Iphone 3G. Do the test again with the new Iphone 3Gs. Be fair-Play true. (I'm not an Iphone Fan!)

Is the browser from N86 (7.1) going to appear in future nokia phones i.e. the E72 ?

So, to help out here, I tested the Timesonline site on my iPhone 3GS (I pushed 'Go' when Rafe pressed the N86 button on the video). Remarkably, it took exactly the same amount to load as the N86. Even watching the progress bar was the same.

The main difference of course is that on the iPhone would see the whole web page, while on the N86 you see a small corner. But to be fair, in terms of speed, the N86 is definitely keeping up.

[JohnnyN]

I've just done the same test with my N86 vs a friends iphone 3GS as well, and while some results varied (one faster than the other at times) , both devices were very similar in speed. Not tested Opera yet

[RogerPodacter]

Originally Posted by Unregistered

It was an Iphone 3G,right? No 3Gs?! Why? You are comparing new Nokia devices with an "old" Iphone 3G. Do the test again with the new Iphone 3Gs. Be fair-Play true. (I'm not an Iphone Fan!)

We all know the new iphone is much better. The point here is that only a few weeks ago we only had the previous iphone to compare to. Yet even then so many people wrote the s60 browser off as slow. But this test clearly shows that the browser is pretty good and fast. This test could have been done only 1 month ago when there was no iphone 3gs yet people back then were still claiming s60 browser sucks. When it clearly doesn't.

My 5800 is actually slightly faster than even the n97. Very impressive! :-)

Interesting. I've often felt the browser on the Nokias to be faster, but less accurate than that of the iPhones.

However, the Nokias also have a decent caching algorithm, while the iPhone tends not to cache as aggressively. Did you clear the caches before testing?

[Tenkom]

my i8910 just spent about 1min 10 secs loading digg.com
And my n95 8gb is even slower. This was on 13mb wifi. None of them could keep up with my first generation ipod touch with version 2.0 software on the same wifi. It will take alot to make me buy another samsung phone.

Originally Posted by Unregistered

It was an Iphone 3G,right? No 3Gs?! Why? You are comparing new Nokia devices with an "old" Iphone 3G. Do the test again with the new Iphone 3Gs. Be fair-Play true. (I'm not an Iphone Fan!)

Did you actually read the article? The author talks about the 3GS and notes its performance would be probably be similar or better than the N86, which I think is being generous given some of the results.

[JohnnyN]

Has you i8910 had it's operator software removed? Just wondering if that could make a difference?

[argh]

I haven't tried an S60 browser for a while now, but my N95 one was horribly slow compared to the competition at the time. I especially despised the 2-pass rendering where the page would load without CSS, then go blank again, then re-render with CSS.

It would also "exit unexpectedly" when browsing many nokia.com web pages, which was amusing.

I assume that neither of these issues is the case in the new versions?

I used to be very happy with Opera Mini, though, for 95% of the pages I wanted.