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View Full Version : Browser N900 vs competition.

janzeeschuimers
2009-09-30, 13:27
I thought the N900 has the best browser compared to the competition but in this review Nokia has to catch up a lot.
http://www.mobile-review.com/review/nokia-maemo5-en.shtml

Here some quotes from the review:

-time with it I reached an unfavorable conclusion - even though Maemo Browser is developing at a rapid pace, it hasn't caught up with the rest of the pack yet, as it still can't stand comparison to the browser application found in Android-based phones or Apple's iPhone (Safari WebKit)

-That's exactly why I said that as of today Maemo Browser has a lot of catching up to do, especially compared to Safari; but it still can make its way into this elite group of browsers provided that Nokia will fix all its leaks and enhance what it's already got in stock.

-However after first waves of my enthusiasm died down and I got back to my everyday routine, it turned out that much like the Nokia N810, the N900's browser speed hinges on the number of active applications and how long your phone has been idle (without rebooting). Over this month I've run into a situation (about 5 times!) when previously opened pages took around 10 seconds to reload, even though there was nothing wrong with my Internet connection. Also I've encountered several issues with loading videos in all flash players, especially on sites other than YouTube.
For comparison, on the Apple iPhone the browser's speed doesn't vary.


The N900 has full flash support and coy and paste in the browser , I thought that Apple this does not has in his browser , correct me when I am wrong ?
frals
2009-09-30, 13:34
I thought the N900 has the best browser compared to the competition but in this review Nokia has to catch up a lot.
http://www.mobile-review.com/review/nokia-maemo5-en.shtml


Remember that the device itself and the SW used in that preview is not the final version.

I'll quote from the creator of the other preview on the device: (http://talk.maemo.org/showpost.php?p=336265&postcount=54)

Sure, if I can only borrow the iPhone from somewhere. But as some reviewers pointed out, the iPhone browser may APPEAR to be faster in some cases because of simply ignoring a lot of content that the N900 browser processes and renders, like e.g. Javascript, Flash etc. It simply has much less to do to show a webpage. Another difference is the resolution of the display, 2.5 times higher on the N900, hence fitting 2.5 times more content at once, i.e. once again more data to process/render.

And even if the resulting difference is like one second or maybe two, in exchange for over twice more content fitting on the screen and Flash/Javascript etc. fully working, who would worry about it? I don't :-)

I didn't do any comparative tests, but Nokia saying that the browser is the fastest actually may be true, if we measure it with relation to the amount of data/content it processes and not just how much seconds it takes to show a page. If a site with lots of Flash shows up in the N900 browser e.g. five seconds later than on the iPhone but WITH the Flash content as opposed to the iPhone showing it without Flash, then it's not OK to just say that the iPhone did it faster... And the same goes for the screen resolution. If the N900 shows a page several seconds later than the iPhone but you can see 250% more of it at once (i.e. full width and 30% more vertically) then just comparing the loading times isn't correct. It's all very RELATIVE.

EDIT: The argument about JavaScript is probably void as I'm quite sure the iPhone browser runs JS just fine - but the rest is still something to consider. :)
ysss
2009-09-30, 13:53
@frals: iphone browser ignores javascript? that's the first time I've read about that. No flash, that's correct.. javascript, afaik works just fine.
frals
2009-09-30, 13:58
ysss: No idea about JavaScript actually - I actually assume it handles that just fine.
access
2009-09-30, 14:06
Mobile Safari probably has the fastest JS engine out there right now if the desktop version (especially the Webkit nightly builds) is anything to go by and I wouldn't mind a port of Webkit to Maemo.
mistermix
2009-09-30, 14:15
One of the recent previews (I think it was the one on my-symbian) mentioned that part of the reason for the perceived slowness of the N900 browser was that it loads stuff like Flash animation.

I wonder if the browser has a plug-in architecture, and if so, if there's a flashblock plugin. I'll bet that would speed up page loads considerably for the average commercial site.
ysss
2009-09-30, 14:18
I definitely want to disable flash by default for mobile browser, what with high cell data prices (or eats up your quota) and because most of them are fluffs anyway.
theflew
2009-09-30, 14:47
One of the recent previews (I think it was the one on my-symbian) mentioned that part of the reason for the perceived slowness of the N900 browser was that it loads stuff like Flash animation.

I wonder if the browser has a plug-in architecture, and if so, if there's a flashblock plugin. I'll bet that would speed up page loads considerably for the average commercial site.

The current MicroB browswer on the N8XX has a plug-in architecture and there is already a flashblock plugin so I don't think there would be a reason the N900 wouldn't have the same.
Thesandlord
2009-09-30, 15:04
Tear works for N900 as well AFAIK. And it is FASSSSST on the N810, so it will be FASSSSSSSSSSSSSSST on the N900.

All smartphones aside from Pre (I think?) have copy-paste. Pre can only copy paste from text fields. Yes even iPhone has it now.