Medialets today released the results of JavaScript benchmark tests performed using the SunSpider test suite on the iPhone 3G and 3GS, the T-Mobile G1 running Android, and the Palm Pre running webOS. The use of the SunSpider suite for benchmarking studies enables cross-platform comparisons among the devices, as they all utilize WebKit-based Web browsers. In the Medialets study, the iPhone 3GS outperformed the Palm Pre by a factor of three and the T-Mobile G1 by over a factor of five.
Notably, Medialets also tested the iPhone 3G running both iPhone OS 2.2.1 and OS 3.0, revealing that iPhone OS 3.0 provides a nearly three-fold improvement in performance over OS 2.2.1 running on the same hardware. The shift to the iPhone 3GS increases performance a further three-fold. All results were compared to the performance of a 2 GHz Core 2 Duo White MacBook, demonstrating JavaScript performance on the iPhone 3GS only 12X that of the MacBook, a remarkable statistic for a smartphone.
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Medialets cautions readers that the JavaScript benchmark results do not necessarily indicate that one device or operating system is "better" than another, and that each operating system may be more well-suited for certain tasks than the others.
