Benchmarking the iPad isn’t the easiest of tasks. It’s not as if you can just sit down, grab the “iBenchmark” application and run the results across every comparable i-style device you own.
However, there are some tests you can hit up-and some tests you can check out–that will give you a good, real-world demonstration of just how speedy the iPad is compared to its smaller predecessors, the iPhone and iPhone 3GS.
The end result? According to Craig Hockenberry, a principal at the Icon factory (makers of Twitterrific), the iPad is a little more than twice as fast as the iPhone 3GS for loading applications and 1.8-times as fast for its Safari JavaScript performance.
The real fun begins when you compare the iPad’s performance to that of the original iPhone—you know, back when the idea of “3G” network connectivity was just a dream in Steve Jobs’ head.
On this, the iPad is anywhere from 12-times, to 428-times, to 8,750-times faster than the first-generation iPhone, depending on the benchmark.
I’ll list out these results in more detail below. However, you’re probably wondering how you can go about benchmarking one of your Apple devices for your own comparative analysis.
Provided you can figure out how to get them to work (Hockenberry doesn’t leave instructions), you can grab the benchmarks he used for the aforementioned performance comparisons and run the tests yourself.
More novice / non-developer users might want to instead check out the online SunSpider JavaScript benchmark. These tests run right out of your Safari browser and should give you a good indication of your product’s JavaScript speeds compared to others.
Since the test runs three times, you should have enough of a data set for the results to be statistically valid—and if you don’t, the benchmark itself will tell you!
You can also check out the Web-based V8 Benchmark Suite, which runs a similar series of JavaScript performance tests. However, just because a product excels on its JavaScript performance doesn’t mean that you’ll always see a direct translation over to its Web browsing.
For that, try grabbing a stopwatch like Anandtech’s CEO Anand Lal Shimpi, who was able to time (after at least five loads per site) that the iPad’s Web site loading times were anywhere from 3 to 9 seconds faster than those of the iPhone 3GS.
As for other tests you can run on your iPad. Well, there are always the stress tests…
So, to recap, here’s how you can benchmark your iPad:
- Run Hockenberry’s tests… somehow
- Run Sun spider’s JavaScript benchmark
- Run the V8 Benchmark Suite
- Bust out the stopwatch and load pages/apps
- Get a bat
- Pleasantly wait for an App developer to run a custom OpenGL ES performance test
Resource:
http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2362242,00.asp
