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Mobile Browser: Android vs. iOS vs. WP7

We got the chance to put three mobile browsers from three different phone OSes this afternoon. TJ suggested we compare how fast the browsers are.

In the left corner, we have Safari Mobile running on the iPhone 4 and IE Mobile running on the HTC 7 Trophy on the far right. In the middle is the native Android Browser on the HTC Desire.

We hooked up the phones to my local WiFi so all of them are using the same connection/bandwidth. We also launched YugaTech.com from a search results page (Google, Google, Bing) so it’s easier to launch them simultaneously.

The Safari browser on the iPhone 4 went ahead with a decisive lead, followed by IE on the HTC 7 Trophy with the Browser on the HTC Desire coming in at a close 3rd.

There’s a catch though — you will notice that the Android Browser on the HTC Desire loaded that skyscraper banner ad which is a Flash file. That was not loaded in Safari and IE since they don’t support Flash (IE will support it in a later update). That gave Safari on the iPhone 4 a good lead in terms of total amount of data downloaded and rendered by the browser.

Despite that advantage, you can still clearly see which one was rendering pages way faster in the first 10 seconds of load time. Note, however, that this is not a definitive test and there could be other factors that affected our crude test.

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Avatar for Abe Olandres

Abe is the founder and Editor-in-Chief of YugaTech with over 20 years of experience in the technology industry. He is one of the pioneers of blogging in the country and considered by many as the Father of Tech Blogging in the Philippines. He is also a technology consultant, a tech columnist with several national publications, resource speaker and mentor/advisor to several start-up companies.

41 Responses

  1. Avatar for watusi watusi says:

    dont compare the OS !!!! coz they have different specs in HW…

  2. Avatar for yizhan yizhan says:

    you should also try skyfire on the iphone4 and desire to see the difference since it Load full desktop webpages including flash.

  3. Avatar for chacha chacha says:

    here is a similar test on iphone4, this time versus ipodtouch 4th gen…
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5EweQuhNHv4

  4. Avatar for Fleeb Fleeb says:

    Baliktarin naman. Load a website that relies on Flash. >:)

  5. Avatar for tic tic says:

    want to share my vid with iMovie
    the pics and the vids are all taken from ipod touch 4th gen.
    enjoy!
    http://youtu.be/tt5_CQhhg8o
    location: SM n. edsa and trinoma

  6. Avatar for tic tic says:

    cute! iMovie! hehehe!
    biased sa iPhone much? lol
    kaya pala mabilis din ung sa itouch4…

  7. Avatar for iPimp iPimp says:

    Without watching the video yet, I can say that usability trumps speed. That being said, I’m in favor of the iPhone being the fastest.

  8. Avatar for leemar leemar says:

    ang dapat na ginamit nila to represent andoid is samsung galaxy S. that should be fair.

  9. Avatar for Jay Jay says:

    haha symbian is dead.

    sana kasama si Blackberry OS na browser.

    hassle lang talaga ang flash, puro ads.. annoying ads.
    90% of my PC browser (chrome & Firefox) are due to crashing and unresponsive Flash & Shockwave Plug-ins.

  10. Avatar for rsa1 rsa1 says:

    pero i have to say this, yugatech site is very slow to load. maybe due to the number of ads being loaded before the actual site.

  11. Avatar for Abe Olandres Abe Olandres says:

    TJ Manotoc forgot to bring out his Nokia N8 e. :D

  12. Avatar for Mon Makuto Mon Makuto says:

    Why the hell did you rule out Symbian, lol

  13. Avatar for mr.bogus mr.bogus says:

    hot topic….!!!!

    unfair no meego and symbian…!!!

    anyway mabilis nga ang safari dahil walang flash…. di tama talaga kung icocompare… its just like apples and oranges!!!!!

    mabilis nga di naman kumpleto yung na-iload.. useless!!!!

  14. Avatar for Negrita Negrita says:

    iPhone 4 simply pwned them all (with flash or not) -even the video was made using the iPhone’s iMovie Apps, im guessing iMovie app is Yugatech’s video editing choice as of now…

  15. Avatar for E E says:

    what about including the Symbian 3^ device on the web browsing test…

  16. Avatar for Teknisyan Teknisyan says:

    Of course there are still factors to consider like connection and data traffic of that web site. But yeah.. I think safari won this round

  17. Avatar for sam sam says:

    Dophin browser on the samsung wave beats ie and and android with flash being loaded.

  18. Avatar for Alexei Rivera Alexei Rivera says:

    I’m watching this on Desire’s inbuilt browser and flash 10.1 right now so that probably makes up for any speed problems.

  19. Avatar for Harley Harley says:

    likie!

  20. Avatar for Jon Jon says:

    You should have tried to disable the Flash plugin on the Desire to compare if flash affects the loading time.

    I also wish you tested other sites as well. :P

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