3Gs really wont be faster browsing the web?

[drober30]

Does the new iPhone 3Gs need the 7.2 Mbps in order to be up to twice as fast? According to AT&T, they have not even deployed this speed increase.

There would definitely be no reason to upgrade if the 3Gs is not going to be 2x faster out of the box. Speed of loading web pages is a major selling point for me.

I understand that the faster processor would open apps faster but would we see a difference in web browsing?

It's probably the 7.2 Mbps they are waiting on to deploy MMS and Tethering.


Read info below from AT&T web site.

NETWORK
AT&T operates the nation's fastest 3G network, delivering the power and benefits of mobile broadband to consumers and businesses. iPhone 3G S will be compatible with High Speed Packet Access (HSPA) 7.2 technology, which offers theoretical peak download speeds of up to 7.2 Mbps, though actual speeds will vary as these capabilities become available. AT&T plans to begin deploying HSPA 7.2 later this year, with completion expected in 2011.

 

[Revelation78]

Does the new iPhone 3Gs need the 7.2 Mbps in order to be up to twice as fast? According to AT&T, they have not even deployed this speed increase.

There would definitely be no reason to upgrade if the 3Gs is not going to be 2x faster out of the box. Speed of loading web pages is a major selling point for me.

I understand that the faster processor would open apps faster but would we see a difference in web browsing?

The pages will render faster on the existing 3G network. One of the big reasons the current 3G seems slow is that fact that it takes so long for a page to render. Couple that with the 7.2 speeds that is available in some markets now and it'll be expanded through 2011, that's just "icing on the cake."

It's probably the 7.2 Mbps they are waiting on to deploy MMS and Tethering.

No offense, you're an idiot if you believe that, AT&T is not waiting on this new network to launch MMS and Tethering. They already offer those features on current handsets. They simply need to turn on the switch for MMS on the iPhone accounts. Tethering will be announced as soon as AT&T pulls its head out of its a$$.

 

[gloss]

Gizmodo already had a live 3G web browsing comparison between the iPhone 3G, 3GS, and Palm Pre, and the 3GS whipped both of the other two handily. I think it was something like 38 seconds to load Gizmodo for the 3GS compared to times in the high-50s for the 3G and Pre.

 

[Pared]

Gizmodo already had a live 3G web browsing comparison between the iPhone 3G, 3GS, and Palm Pre, and the 3GS whipped both of the other two handily. I think it was something like 38 seconds to load Gizmodo for the 3GS compared to times in the high-50s for the 3G and Pre.

Link?

 

[D3lta]

Link?

They removed it. :/ They also had a bunch of pictures of packaging along with a video they recorded on the phone and uploaded it to YouTube, but it was also removed. I guess Apple isn't allowing it yet.

To load up Gizmodo, the timings were:

iPhone 3G S: 38 seconds.

Palm Pre: 57 seconds.

iPhone 3G: 59 seconds.

It was really really fast...

 

[Pared]

And that was a regular 3G with 3.0?

Interesting find. Hopefully they re-add it.

 

[spencecb]

They removed it. :/ They also had a bunch of pictures of packaging along with a video they recorded on the phone and uploaded it to YouTube, but it was also removed. I guess Apple isn't allowing it yet.

To load up Gizmodo, the timings were:

iPhone 3G S: 38 seconds.

Palm Pre: 57 seconds.

iPhone 3G: 59 seconds.

It was really really fast...

How could they have the test speeds for the 3G S if AT&T hasn't even begun deployment of the new network?

 

[Pared]

How could they have the test speeds for the 3G S if AT&T hasn't even begun deployment of the new network?

The processor and increased RAM all play a part...

 

[spencecb]

The processor and increased RAM all play a part...

I'm not so sure a faster processor and more RAM will enable the phone to trim 20 seconds off of it rendering a webpage. If so, when the new network goes live, it would make it faster than most WIFI connections, which, knowing AT&T, is impossible

 

[gloss]

I'm not so sure a faster processor and more RAM will enable the phone to trim 20 seconds off of it rendering a webpage. If so, when the new network goes live, it would make it faster than most WIFI connections, which, knowing AT&T, is impossible

They had a live, outdoor video with all three phones. I witnessed it with my own eyes.

When the iPhone 3G finished loading they were like "Okay, 3G's done. So's Pre. Wait, is the GS done already?" "GS was done...like...a while ago." "Wow."

Running on the same 3G network. They seemed impressed that the 3GS pulled out those speeds over AT&T, which was doubtless congested because of WWDC, while the Pre was only a couple seconds ahead of the original 3G.

 

[darngooddesign]

I understand that the faster processor would open apps faster but would we see a difference in web browsing?.

Surf the web on an iBook and then on a MacBook and tell us if they feel the same.

 

[osin]

Probably new iPhone had OS 3.0 installed and this could speed up the browser too...

 

[redman042]

I can attest the 3G processor is a major bottleneck for Safari right now, far more than the cell connection in most cases. I've seen this through my own experience loading simple and complex websites over wifi and 3G. Believe me, browsing will be FAR better on the 3GS, even on AT&T's existing network, which is already theoretically very fast for web browsing. As an example, I've seen posts from people using the 3G in tethering mode (jailbroken with Netshare) and their laptop loads web pages FAR faster than the phone, even though the data connection is the same.

I posted this quote from the Register elsewhere but I'll post again:

He also noted that Apple's testing showed the 3G S to perform the SunSpider benchmark in 15 seconds, compared with an iPhone 3G running iPhone Software 2.2.1's 126 seconds and a 3G running Software 3.0's 43 seconds. Note, though, that SunSpider tests only the performance of the JavaScript engine.

That means javascript will render OVER 8 TIMES FASTER on the 3GS (3.0) than on the 3G (2.2.1). You can see from these numbers that OS 3 is part of the improvement, but by no means all of it.

 

[Michael CM1]

There's a lot more to loading Web pages than the network. I mentioned this about a week ago as I tried to look something up on IMDB simulatenously on my MBP and iPhone. MBP was insanely faster. All the network does is pull bits across a line. The computing components have to reassemble it all. This is why the 3G-S should be much faster.

 

[hefeglass]

..the faster processor and RAM would definitely shave alot of time off of a page loading..

I also saw the full gizmodo article with videos and also a youtube video they uploaded from the 3g s.


the new phone is very impressive...but i think you doubters should just stick with what you got...after all..nobody will even know you bought a new phone since it looks the same. Your status would be tarnished..

 

[hefeglass]

I can attest the 3G processor is a major bottleneck for Safari right now, far more than the cell connection in most cases. I've seen this through my own experience loading simple and complex websites over wifi and 3G. Believe me, browsing will be FAR better on the 3GS, even on AT&T's existing network, which is already theoretically very fast for web browsing. As an example, I've seen posts from people using the 3G in tethering mode (jailbroken with Netshare) and their laptop loads web pages FAR faster than the phone, even though the data connection is the same.

I posted this quote from the Register elsewhere but I'll post again:

He also noted that Apple's testing showed the 3G S to perform the SunSpider benchmark in 15 seconds, compared with an iPhone 3G running iPhone Software 2.2.1's 126 seconds and a 3G running Software 3.0's 43 seconds. Note, though, that SunSpider tests only the performance of the JavaScript engine.

That means javascript will render OVER 8 TIMES FASTER on the 3GS (3.0) than on the 3G (2.2.1). You can see from these numbers that OS 3 is part of the improvement, but by no means all of it.

im sure that both the 3g AND the 3g s were running 3.0. Every developer I know has been running 3.0 since beta 3 or so...and this is a dev conference..

im POSITIVE that they were running 3.0 on the 3g...unfortunately, the pics are gone, and the video is too

 

[hbg]

The processor and increased RAM all play a part...

That's exactly it. If you jailbreak and tether the computer you are using for web surfing is far faster than the iphone itself at opening pages. It is the processor and RAM. Which begs the question- will the 3GS really have a faster processor and more RAM? Apple has not said.

 

[skwoytek]

Downloading the page over the network isn't the cause for slowness in mobile safari. HTML and Javascript (which are just text), and a few images aren't the problem.

Mobile safari does quite a bit of processing to render the page in a manner that let's users double-tap to zoom, etc. It's true that 3.0 speeds up the rendering with better coding, but the processor in the 3G S will speed it up even more. There will be a noticeable difference when running the two side by side on the same 3.6 3G network.

 

[redman042]

will the 3GS really have a faster processor and more RAM? Apple has not said.

I have to think YES on both counts. I've read from multiple sources that the new iPhone is faster in both loading and executing programs, and also in 3D rendering. That points to more RAM and probably a faster bus (loading), faster processor (executing) and perhaps faster graphics chip or at least firmware (3D rendering.

This is one hot phone.

 

[MBHockey]

Yes -- faster CPUs will indeed speed up page rendering even without a "3.5G" network.

When I use NetShare on my MacBook (over 3G) the pages load WAY faster than on the iPhone.

Also, notice that when you are using your iPhone on your home wifi how much faster pages load on your Mac than your iPhone. At home I have a 20 mbps Fios line, and it's quite obvious that the limiting factor becomes the iPhone's CPU when rendering pages since it's so much faster on my Mac.

 

[dagomike]

No offense, you're an idiot if you believe that, AT&T is not waiting on this new network to launch MMS and Tethering. They already offer those features on current handsets. They simply need to turn on the switch for MMS on the iPhone accounts. Tethering will be announced as soon as AT&T pulls its head out of its a$$.

I wouldn't be so quick on ridicule. iPhones account for most all of ATT wireless data bandwidth, tethering is likely to spike it further. They could in fact be waiting to increase bandwidth to high traffic cell sites.

 

[beamer8912]

They removed it. :/ They also had a bunch of pictures of packaging along with a video they recorded on the phone and uploaded it to YouTube, but it was also removed. I guess Apple isn't allowing it yet.

To load up Gizmodo, the timings were:

iPhone 3G S: 38 seconds.

Palm Pre: 57 seconds.

iPhone 3G: 59 seconds.

It was really really fast...

I call BS. I just loaded the FULL gizmodo homepage (over 3G) in 41 seconds using a 2.2.1 iPhone 3G. Actually, I did it twice to make sure.

Since its simply the processing difference (not the 3G speed), something must be up with their vid.

edit: 3rd go yielded 39 seconds. FYI, it was not a page refresh, started from a blank page.

 

[redman042]

I call BS. I just loaded the FULL gizmodo homepage (over 3G) in 41 seconds using a 2.2.1 iPhone 3G. Actually, I did it twice to make sure.

Since its simply the processing difference (not the 3G speed), something must be up with their vid.

edit: 3rd go yielded 39 seconds. FYI, it was not a page refresh, started from a blank page.

They were on a congested cell site. Probably one of the most congested on Earth (WWDC). Plus the OS build on the phone might not have been final.