I’ve had a theory about web-page loading speed for about three years now. When a web page takes more than 12 seconds to load, a user considers it a slow experience. Anything less than 10-12 seconds and everything is in the green zone. Smartphones are now entering the green zone.
The mobile Internet experience needs to be compatible and quick and if either one of those elements fails, then the customers Internet experience fails.
In my search for the full internet experience in my pocket I’ve spent hundreds of hours testing, analyzing, questioning, discussing and writing about the subject and I have a very clear picture of what is satisfying for the end user. In Sept 2007 I wrote about the extremely poor ARM-based internet experience. Really, it was embarrassing. The best phones of the day were taking nearly twice as long as the slowest of X86-based platforms with small screen sizes and low-quality rendering adding to the overall disappointment.
In October 2009, 2 years after my ARM-bashing article, the ecosystem had moved forward a long way and we saw what was probably the fastest ARM-based browsing experience ever. The Archos 5 was even beating low-end UMPCs. The iPhone 3GS was doing well too. Take another 5 months step into the future to the present day and you now have smartphones beating low-end Ultra-Mobile PCs. Pocketables, always reliable for a good set of browsing speed test results, shows us that there are at least three phones out there that are in the green zone now with the Nexus one and iPhone 3GS breaking the 10-second barrier. If JKK’s excitement about the Milestone and the Android 2.1 upgrade is anything to go by, we can expect the Droid/Milestone to be in that category too. The HTC desire will be joining the club in just a few weeks and following closely will be the Dell Mini 5 and Sprint EvO.
Just to re-cap, that’s pocketable, always-on, fast-internet devices with mobile-focused operating systems, mobile photo and video cams, high speed 3G, GPS, sensors, touchscreen, multi-GB’s of storage and access to thousands of apps costing under 400 Euros.
Related: The Full Internet Experience of 2010
Related: ARM’s lock-in opportunity
It’s not just the CPU.
You might think that ARM and their silicon partners are responsible for the advance but fortunately for Intel, that’s not quite true because in the last 2 years we’ve seen some amazing progress in browser software performance. Javascript processing speed, delayed script processing and other tricks and optimisations mean we’re also seeing improvements on desktop browsers too. I haven’t had time to do a complete set of tests but after disabling Flash on my desktop browsers I’m seeing something like 20-30% speed improvements over results of two years ago.
I’m not going to sit here and defend X86 though because its the ARM ecosystem that deserves the praise here. The fact is that the ARM ecosystem of hardware and software developers has moved forward quickly and shows no signs of stopping. In fact, as ARM tablets and always-on netbooks enter the market, that momentum could increase. With Moorestown and MeeGo on the horizon for X86 there’s a ray of hope for X86 but if that hardware/software platform isn’t good enough (most of us in the industry agree that it needs to move on another generation before it’s ‘ripe’ for smartphones) and the speed of development and investment doesn’t ramp-up quickly enough, Intel will never be able to catch up with the smartphone market.
March 29th, 2010 at 12:39 pm
New article: Smartphones Break the 10-second Barrier. http://bit.ly/diqqhE
March 29th, 2010 at 12:41 pm
Smartphones Break the 10-second Barrier.: I’ve had a theory about web-page loading speed for about three years now… http://bit.ly/cM22kA
March 29th, 2010 at 2:36 pm
RT @umpcportal: New article: Smartphones Break the 10-second Barrier. http://bit.ly/diqqhE
March 29th, 2010 at 3:10 pm
RT @umpcportal: New article: Smartphones Break the 10-second Barrier. http://bit.ly/diqqhE
March 29th, 2010 at 3:34 pm
Samsung i8910 has (almost) the same hardware as 3GS and is extremely fast with the Opera Mobile 10. Loading heavy sites take around 5 seconds on WiFi.
March 29th, 2010 at 3:59 pm
Great post, Chippy. I had just read Jenn’s article at Pocketables before reading yours and decided that I have to get either a Nexus One or an Evo (I don’t like the Droid’s form factor or its looks). Right now I have an HTC Hero and it just doesn’t cut it — doesn’t break that 12-second barrier often, if at all. I also have an Archos A5 Android, which has a really good browsing experience, but despite lots of improvements via firmware updates it’s still got too many glitches/freezes. I guess the Dell Mini 5 would be an option for me as well.
March 29th, 2010 at 5:23 pm
>>>but after disabling Flash on my desktop browsers I’m seeing something like 20-30% speed improvements over results of two years ago.
LMAO! But don’t you cite LACK OF FLASH as a shortcoming of Apple’s iPhone and iPad? Now you can see at least one reason why they do that.
March 29th, 2010 at 5:56 pm
You should use Adblock Plus for Firefox since ads != Flash. That increase in browsing performance you get is mainly due to blocking ads and not the Flash content you actually want to see (ie. NY Times, CNN, Hulu, etc.).
March 29th, 2010 at 10:05 pm
UMPC is not an smartphone,and arm devices does not run windows programs.
MDC Reply:
March 30th, 2010 at 10:58 pm
ARM enabled devices can & do run windows ce. ARM is a choice of 32-bit embedded microprocessors, offering a wide range of processors based on a common architecture that deliver high performance. Ref. http://www.arm.com/markets/mobile/index.php
Move Reply:
March 31st, 2010 at 3:06 am
If you’re counting Windows CE then there’s Windows Mobile and the upcoming Windows Phone 7 series. With that said, I’m sure focus was talking about programs on desktop Windows OS’s (ie. Windows XP, Vista and 7). Anyway, everyone seems to have their own definition of a UMPC too.
March 30th, 2010 at 12:33 am
….not to mention the N900 folks!With the microb browser it does get into the sub 10 sec category….pages like engadget loads as fast as my pc!
March 30th, 2010 at 4:46 am
why do you still say x86? Intel has gone x64 now with the introduction of Pinetrail
solnyshok Reply:
March 30th, 2010 at 3:00 pm
x86 is an instruction set. x64 and x32 is x86 instruction processing bus width (or something along these lines)
dude Reply:
March 30th, 2010 at 6:21 pm
Actually x64 is used to refer to the 64 bit extension of the 32 bit x86 instruction set. The term x32 isn’t used for anything. To be accurate, the instruction sets are x86-16, x86-32 and x86-64. x86 is commonly used to refer to the 32 bit instruction set and x64 refers to the 64 bit one.
Chippy is correct in lumping Intel’s CPUs (except for the Itanium CPUs) into the x86 category.
March 30th, 2010 at 5:22 am
It was good to see references to fast browsing on TI OMAP3430 based Samsung i8910, Archos 5 and Nokia N900
You will see the next big boost in performance later this year and into 2011 when dual-core Cortex-A9 products hit the market. Higher instructions per cycle, higher frequencies and dual cores boot the performance signficantly. Combine this with browser optimizations to take advantage of SMP and the future looks bright; especially with low-power, multi-core offerings (like TI OMAP4430) over single-core Intel Moorestown in this timeframe. I don’t think there has been enough attention over how this performance gap will increase quickly with multi-core ARMs coming. Yes, you can get dual-core Atom, but not in this class of device (too high power).
March 30th, 2010 at 8:33 am
I won`t underestimate INTEL,would you?
March 30th, 2010 at 8:01 pm
..i guess that’s the reason i will take my soon available HTC Desire as my main (!!) media and browsing tool to south africa in may! my netbook has already left and my umpc (htc shift) is showing up soon on online auction…
March 31st, 2010 at 1:56 pm
A quick test on my newly bought HD2 and Opera 10 beta (with flash and java enanble)
google.com 2-3sec
umpcportal 14sec
endgadget 25 sec
The times seams slower then it is, as tekst and pictures are loaded in half that time, and the rest of the time i guees is for flash. Could be interresting to try out some add blocking software.
I just ordere a small BT keyboard to go with the HD2 as my mobile solution. I would normaly be surfing through remote desktop though, its alot faster.
March 31st, 2010 at 1:58 pm
btw. got the HD2 used for only 320 euro, so its a cheap option. Only problem is the small battery and missing built in stand.
March 31st, 2010 at 7:20 pm
>> but after disabling Flash on my desktop browsers I’m seeing something like 20-30% speed improvements over results of two years ago.
Yes, my slow PC with Flashblock/Adblock is much faster than the better PC without Flashblock/Adblock.
Many websites are unusable with older PC’s due to flash…