Posted in: Mobile computers, Mobile software

iPad browser speed test shows that Mobile Safari is faster than desktop Safari, Chrome

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We’re still tinkering with the iPad – after we tested the JavaScript performance of the Mobile Safari browser, we decided to run some page loading tests. And Mobile Safari redeemed itself by beating the desktop Safari browser and Chrome to the finish line…

We wanted accurate results, so we created a (rather large) static page and hosted it on a local computer. This way variation in the Internet connection wouldn’t affect the outcome.

The contestants: Apple iPad and a Lenovo S10e netbook (the same we used for the JavaScript benchmarks) running desktop Safari and Chrome. And the winner is…


Load times in seconds, lower is better

…the iPad! It was about twice as fast when loading a new page compared to its desktop rival. Bigger RAM probably gave Safari and Chrome advantage in caching on the nebook, so they were 1-1.5 seconds faster when reloading the page.

The JavaScript engine on Mobile Safari could probably use some more optimizations, but the rendering engine puts desktop browsers to shame. Sure, it’s simpler as it doesn’t need to worry about things like Flash and Java, but when given tasks it can handle, the iPad browser is blazing fast.

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