iPhone 3GS website load time tests

Posted on 22 June 2009, Last updated on 22 June 2009 by

iphone3gs If you are a regular reader of sites in our end of the blogosphere I’m almost sure that you are aware that the iPhone 3GS has now been released by Apple. While not a drastic change from the original, the 3GS boasts speed improvements that claim to make it twice as fast as the iPhone 3G. Chippy mentions that the iPhone 3GS is ‘the most important MID‘ out there right now, and it is inevitable that people will compare many of the upcoming Moorestown devices to the iPhone 3GS. MIDs run lots of different software, amd while we won’t be able to do direct application comparisons, one of factors that we can most easily compare is the speed in which a MID can load a webpage. AnandTech put together a table which stacks the iPhone 3GS up against some of best smartphones out there.

WiFi Apple iPhone 3G Apple iPhone 3GS Palm Pre T-Mobile G1
anandtech.com 16.3 s 7.8 s 8.2 s 17.2 s
arstechnica.com 17.7 s 6.3 s 7.8 s 17.8 s
hothardware.com 35.2 s 14.7 s 11.2 s 24.4 s
pcper.com 33.3 s 15.0 s 18.0 s 34.0 s
digg.com 34.3 s 15.0 s 22.1 s 40.0 s
techreport.com 24.1 s 9.6 s 9.0 s 20.5 s
tomshardware.com 21.4 s 16.4 s 13.8 s 26.0 s
slashdot.org 26.0 s 10.0 s 20.9 s 46.0 s
facebook.com 31.7 s 13.5 s 19.6 s 37.7 s
iPhone 3GS Advantage over Palm Pre 21%
iPhone 3GS Advantage over iPhone 3G 122%


It is easy to see the ability of the iPhone 3GS to quickly render websites, and the iPhone 3GS has set the bar that upcoming Moorestown MIDs will match and hopefully surpass.

Check out the full article at AnandTech for additional tests.

19 Comments For This Post

  1. Ben Lang says:

    New article: iPhone 3GS website load time tests http://cli.gs/4sXUS

  2. LeeN says:

    The way they are calculating the ‘advantage’ percentage is biased towards slower loading websites. They are adding all the seconds together and comparing the total seconds, rather then averaging advantage per website. A website may load slower because of bandwidth issues, and so it’s performance in loading will be less about the over all performance of the system. This reduces the other all ‘advantage’ of one system.

    Anand and Tom’s hardware both make this exact same mistake with video cards and games benchmarks. They total the fps of all the games they tested as a means of comparing video performance. The problem with this is that the results are biased towards higher frame rate games, so Quake3 at 200fps will have more influence on the results then Crysis at 20fps.

  3. GianniD says:

    ((X-x)+(Y-y))/2 = (X+Y – x+y)/2

  4. Crispintx says:

    X=5
    x=3
    Y=4
    y=2

    ((5-3)+(4-2))/2=2

    (5+4-3+2)/2=8

    You might want to check your math.

  5. BryanA says:

    I thought that was a good idea so I made a spreadsheet to figure out the average advantage per website. Going that route the 3GS is 128% faster than the 3G, 153% faster than the G1, and 23% faster than the Pre. The Pre is also 99% faster than the 3G and 106% faster than the G1. If slashdot.org is removed than the numbers change greatly. 3GS vs Pre down to 12%, 3GS vs G1 127%, Pre vs 3G 108%. The difference between the 3GS vs 3G and Pre vs G1 don’t change much.

  6. turn_self_off says:

    The difference between the pre and the 3GS can be explained by the variability of adds shown.

    Get hit with a somewhat more elaborate ad and it will take longer to fully load…

    I would say we are more correctly seeing the difference in load time between cortex (3GS, pre) and the previous gen of ARM (3G, G1).

    now what would have been really interesting to see is a matchup of moorestown and cortex that includes battery drain while loading the pages…

  7. Chippy says:

    The X70 is loading those pages in 66% of the time although it has to be said that these are excellent figures from the iphone 3gs. A great step forward and if you look at 800Mhz Menlow-based devices like the Benq S6 and Aigo, you won’t find the load times much quicker at all (although flash and plugins and full-screen viewing is obviously supported)

    a 15-second average page load time is where consumer devices need to be. 10 seconds for pro devices.

    I seriously can’t wait for an iPod + version of this. Pray for 800×480 and 4″ or more screen!

    Steve.

  8. turn_self_off says:

    It would surprise me if a itouch shows up with a high rez screen before a iphone does…

  9. LeeN says:

    The iPod touch has enjoyed a faster processor then the iPhone 3g. But I guess that is entirely different then screen resolution, especially when many apps are more then likely designed for low rez.

  10. turn_self_off says:

    Yep, unless the interface graphics and all that is made using vectors, higher pixel count can result in smaller graphics overall, making things hard to read for some…

    But i am not familiar with the insides of the apple libs. i guess there could be something in there thats set up to deal with this in a “transparent” manner.

  11. Chippy says:

    One more thing – it gives an idea of how quick an OMAP3-based Nokia tablet would be.

  12. turn_self_off says:

    Indeed, should be really interesting.

  13. Vit says:

    Interesting… And not one mention of WM devices…

  14. charlesss says:

    I mainly use my iPhone for playing games, it’s the best gaming machine ever imo.

  15. Vlad says:

    I bought one (3GS 16Gb) 2 days ago, unlocked from Italy. It is definitely much faster then the old 3G. Faster in loading web pages, loading apps, interface is even smoother. From speed perspective it it just perfect. I just don’t like battery – have to recharge it on daily basis (wifi always on, BT off, push notifications on, 1 hour of web browsing, from time to time surfing through menus and IM posting).
    I don’t like 3G version (arguing with my friend who has it), but bought this one due to the following reasons:
    – Cortex A8 and PowerVR SGX inside (good enough for a couple of years)
    – still the best user interface (palm made a good job though)
    – large third party dev community

    Push notifications (although not perfect) feature is just enough for me to be 24/24 online for IM, and accept the lack of multithreading.

  16. Anna says:

    Its better to have iPhone compatble website not only when load time is a concern but also helpful in many ways. I believe companies must look forward to have their websites iPhone compatible. ‘Made for iPhone’ websites by SDPlabs makes it even simpler and easier to have a iPhone compatible website.
    Hope that helps someone.
    thnx for the post

  17. turn_self_off says:

    i would much prefer more generic “mobile device” friendly pages then specifically iphone friendly…

    All to many eggs in the apple basket these days…

  18. Free Mobile Phone says:

    Ta for the information, very usefull

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