It looks like iPhone 3GS speed is much improved

Posted By on June 24, 2009

SunSpider JavaScript Benchmark

After a couple of weeks with the Palm Pre I’m learning to be more productive with the hot little smartphone device. The earlier cut, copy and paste complaints for supported apps complaint has become less of an issue and I’m enjoying the improved camera, yet still miss added camera features and video. There are also several functions that I miss after years of using Palm OS dedicated PDAs and smartphones (Palm Pilot, Visors, Treo 600, Samsung i500, Treo 700p and Centro), but there are several huge improvements over Palm OS devices too … not the least which is the ablity to have several applications running at the same time and still be on the phone. Email now rivals the Blackberry and the over the air ‘synergy’ for contacts and calendar something way ahead of competitors. In my opinion these feature make the Pre a productivity device, although it is still considerably behind a notebook computer. I’m not sure how one measures user productivity in ‘speed’ tests similar to the one below (if you have an Atom netbook or a Android device give it a try and send or comment your results). LINK to test.

That said, the comparison devices that I have used and can fairly compare the Palm Pre (besides the Treo) are the Windows Mobile phones and first generation iPhone and iTouch devices. Nevertheless, after considering pocketable options — the Pre is really pocketable —  the only competitor I could see myself gravitating to would be the iPhone and probably only the speedy 3GS model, but realistically until there is a physical keyboard I just can see myself switching (hint, hint, Apple – remember my 2 button touchpad and 2 button scroll wheel mouse gripe from years ago) .

Thumbnail Palm Pre ScreenshotAs for speed, the new iPhone 3GS does seem to be showing some pretty impressive numbers. I noticed the benchmark testing using SunSpider JavaScript and thought why not give my Palm Pre a try. As you can see, my test was close to what the Medialets test turned in – 48.6 seconds to my 49.6 seconds … considerably behind the newest iPhone. For the fun of it, I also ran my 2GHz Core 2 Gateway notebook running Safari 4.0 on Windows 7 Ultimate RC  (balanced power setting) scored a 0.81 seconds compared to the 2GHz Core 2 Mac running OS X v10.5.7 scoring 1.36 seconds and Safari. Is there really that much of a difference?

medialets graphic

Comments

Desultory - des-uhl-tawr-ee, -tohr-ee

  1. lacking in consistency, constancy, or visible order, disconnected; fitful: desultory conversation.
  2. digressing from or unconnected with the main subject; random: a desultory remark.
My Desultory Blog