Understanding the iPhone 3GS
by Anand Lal Shimpi on July 7, 2009 12:00 AM EST- Posted in
- Smartphones
- Mobile
The CPU and its Performance
I keep mentioning that the iPhone 3GS is faster than its predecessor, but these numbers speak louder than anything I can write:
| Application Launch Time | Apple iPhone 3G (3.0) | Apple iPhone 3GS (3.0) |
| Star Defense | 54.4 s | 22.9 s |
| Sims 3 | 28.0 s | 9.5 s |
| Resident Evil | 32.0 s | 22.5 s |
| Messaging App | 4.66 s | 1.97 s |
| Mail App | 2.31 s | 0.85 s |
| Search for "Man" | 4.0 s | 1.91 s |
| App Store | 7.2 s | 3.7 s |
| Power On Test | 39.7 s | 25.0 s |
| iPhone 3GS Advantage over iPhone 3G | 95% |
This is a generational improvement in performance folks. The new 3GS is, at worst, only 42% faster than the iPhone 3G. At best? Nearly 200% faster. Apple was right to abandon the aging ARM11 core used in the iPhone 3G in favor of the Cortex A8 in the 3GS. I also wonder if any of these performance gains are helped by using faster NAND flash in the 3GS. It wouldn't be enough to account for all of the performance boost, but perhaps 5 - 10%.
WiFi and 3G web page rendering speed is also a lot faster on the 3GS:
| 3G | Apple iPhone (3.0) | Apple iPhone 3G (3.0) | Apple iPhone 3GS (3.0) | Palm Pre (1.03) |
| anandtech.com | 41.0 s | 24.2 s | 14.0 s | 17.0 s |
| arstechnica.com | 34.4 s | 18.2 s | 9.6 s | 13.5 s |
| hothardware.com | 84.3 s | 58.3 s | 19.8 s | 23.0 s |
| pcper.com | 67.1 s | 35.1 s | 18.5 s | 22.1 s |
| digg.com | 75.2 s | 47.2 s | 19.9 s | 24.9 s |
| techreport.com | 44.5 s | 25.2 s | 13.6 s | 12.5 s |
| tomshardware.com | 75.7 s | 28.8 s | 22.2 s | 25.2 s |
| facebook.com | 103.4 s | 46.3 s | 15.4 s | 26.8 s |
I re-ran all of my web browsing performance tests on all of the phones to provide the most accurate comparison. I ran the Palm Pre data before the 1.04 OS release came out but apparently that update didn't improve browsing performance so I wouldn't expect much difference there.
The 3GS makes everything faster, including web browsing over the 3G network. Just to be clear, I used the full site versions of all of these web pages - I did not use any mobile or iPhone optimized sites in the timing. I tried to perform all of the tests at the same time to eliminate any network strangeness. Each test was performed three times and I reported the average.
The 3GS is nearly 300% faster than the original iPhone in browsing over the cellular network. Here the 3GS looks to be around 114% faster than the iPhone 3G - definitely worth the upgrade if you do a lot of browsing on your phone. The iPhone 3GS ended up 24% faster than the Palm Pre, but I suspect that most of that is due to performance differences between Sprint and AT&T at my house.
It is important to realize what we're talking about here. These phones, particularly ones that are using old ARM11 based SoCs, are CPU bound while loading web pages. Even while browsing over a relatively slow < 1Mbps cellular network, the CPU still ends up being a significant bottleneck to web page rendering performance. Compare that to how things work on the desktop - when was the last time you felt your PC was too slow to browse the web? The Cortex A8 is a huge step forward here, and once again, there's no excuse for putting any ARM11 in a high end smartphone today.
Let's remove more bottlenecks and see how big of a difference the CPU alone makes, the following tests were performed over WiFi:
| WiFi | Apple iPhone 3G (3.0) | Apple iPhone 3GS (3.0) | Palm Pre (1.03) |
| anandtech.com | 13.3 s | 8.8 s | 10.1 s |
| arstechnica.com | 12.8 s | 8.2 s | 8.2 s |
| hothardware.com | 35.8 s | 15.1 s | 11.6 s |
| pcper.com | 27.8 s | 17.3 s | 21.3 s |
| digg.com | 36.1 s | 17.5 s | 16.3 s |
| techreport.com | 17.1 s | 11.6 s | 7.8 s |
| tomshardware.com | 21.7 s | 12.2 s | 12.4 s |
| facebook.com | 29.3 s | 10.5 s | 22.1 s |
Remove the cellular bottleneck and things mostly stay the same between iPhones. The new 3GS is nearly 100% faster than the old 3G (and iPhone original). The major change comes from the comparison to the Palm Pre. The 3GS is now only 8% faster than the Pre, a significant improvement from the earlier releases of webOS. I do firmly believe that Palm has much room to improve performance on its device to bring it up to speed compared to the 3GS. It's running very similar hardware to the iPhone 3GS, there's no reason for it to feel so much slower.
Let me take this opportunity to also chastise HTC for using the Qualcomm MSM7200A in the new Hero smartphone. Here we have yet another Android OS phone using a horrendously old ARM11 based CPU, it’s just unacceptable. The table above shows you how much more performance is on the table if you move to Cortex A8. I’m still waiting for a handset maker to do Android justice and pair it with a truly robust hardware platform.
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Affectionate-Bed-980 - Wednesday, July 8, 2009 - link
It's unacceptable because what? HTC Touch Diamond 2 and Touch Pro 2 are flagship phones with ARM11 processors? Yes I pointed out some phones that have it, but have you guys even seriously used an S60 phone? Multiple S60 phones? I've gone through N80, N95, N82, and I've toyed with an N85 and 5800 also. The N97 is certainly fine in usability. It could use some more RAM, but even if you stuffed a Cortex A8 and some more RAM, the phone is still going to get a lot of flak except for people who look at it on paper. Symbian S60v5 is perfectly fine on ARM11. It doesn't need some insane CPU to keep up with the UI.Moreover, the N97 isn't really that much of a gaming platform like the iPhone. Think of the N97 like the Touch Pro 2. The Touch Pro 2 is more business oriented with the QWERTY and everything. HTC didn't upgrade the camera, and didn't bother to build it the same way the flagship Diamond 2 was built. This doesn't mean it's a BAD phone.
You guys are thinking of this whole thing like a computer or something. Have you seen the N95 photos? It's a 2007 phone. Pretty much the best 5MP all around. The N97 does a little better. Yes it demolishes the 3MP crap on the 3GS. So coming from a more computer-centric crowd here yes it makes sense to bash a CPU, but from a mobile phone perspective it's not even that bad at all. If anything the phone was first a phone before it was a camera and then an MP3 player, and now a powerhouse mini computer. If you're telling me that in 2006 I could've bought a Sony Ericsson 3 MP cameraphone, then why are we still stuck there on the 3GS? There are more important features that phones push for such as music, camera, later GPS and connectivity, and now processing power. Give it some time and I bet you Nokia will have a winner soon.
What crappy screen on the N97? Resistive? Get over it. The iPhone is capacitive, so all phones must be capacitive? The iPhone has a Cortex A8, everything else must have it? Please. Multi touch is patented by Apple, so it's a little difficult to move into that arena for now. There are advantages and disadvantages to both resistive and capacitive screens. Just because the N97 doesn't mimick the iPhone doesn't mean it sucks. HTC's WinMo phones are resistive screens too. So are the new Samsung Omnia II and Pro phones. So is the new Sony Ericsson Satio.
Different phones are built differently, but honestly when you look at pure functionality, the lack of multitasking is much larger than a CPU difference.
I feel it is justified to say Nokia needs to get to work, but to hear this from people who really doesn't have as much experience with unlocked phones is like hearing one of those ditzy people who buys Apple thinking it'll solve their spyware problems on their PC tell you why a Mac is superior. I'd rather hear it from the computer guru. Gizmodo may be negative, but I think Engadget gave the N97 a fair look and so did other reviewers like PhoneArena, GSMArena, Mobile-Burn, Symbian-Guru.
Look I have nothing against Apple. I have a 3GS too. It's just not my thing and I'm back on my N-series. I'm not a Nokia fanboy or anything. There's plenty of criticism I've given the N97 and Nokia in the S60 section of HoFo, but I believe having had 3 iPhones, Anand is quite biased.
vshah - Wednesday, July 8, 2009 - link
Anand,Thanks for this excellent article, I really enjoyed the cpu benchmark/comparisons you did; they paint a very clear picture.
I was curious as to your thoughts on the multitasking implementation on Android. Holding down home for a couple seconds brings up the 6 most recently accessed apps/tasks, and I've always found switching between them to be pretty fluid. Have you had a chance to try that out?
Thanks,
Vivan
MrX8503 - Wednesday, July 8, 2009 - link
This isn't even a phone site and it has the most in depth review of the iphone yet.I guess being a tech site, Anandtech has an edge over other sites that just review phones.
Good Work!
kmmatney - Wednesday, July 8, 2009 - link
I needed a new phone for work, and spent about 30 minutes in the local AT&T store testing out phones yesterday. After using the blackberry and iPhone for quite some time, I have to say the iPhone was much better. I was way more productive with it - everything was easy to do, while I felt like all the other phones were fighting me. Overall, a fantastic phone for business - I went for the 16GB 3GS model - the only gripe is the 7 day wait for shipment.sprockkets - Wednesday, July 8, 2009 - link
You mentioned using voice command. Can you use it via a BT headset?Also, does it play ringtones over the headset? Does it announce who is calling over the headset?
nafhan - Wednesday, July 8, 2009 - link
Thanks for a great article!One minor complaint, and it's really not even a complaint. I want to point out that this would have made two excellent stand alone articles.
First article would have been about the current state of mobile CPU and GPU architecture. This section was excellent and detailed enough that I really felt it deserved it's own article rather than being lumped in as part of your iPhone impressions.
Second article would have been your impressions and review of the 3GS.
WeaselITB - Wednesday, July 8, 2009 - link
I agree with this - it does seem that there are two articles vying for attention here, and with a bit more polish they could have been published separately.That said, I do want to commend you for this article. These are the types of in-depth reports that made me start reading AT ten or so years ago, and they are the type of in-depth reports that keep me reading. Thanks, Anand.
Rolphus - Wednesday, July 8, 2009 - link
I think this is an important point. Apple see the iPhone as a device, exactly the same as the iPod. No "user" compares about the iPod's CPU, any more than they care about the CPU of their refrigerator. For it to be a true consumer device (rather than a computer), it should "just work", and work with acceptable performance, in all the situations it's designed for.Yes, us techies want to know more, and that's precisely why we come to sites like Anandtech and read your articles. I don't think the mainstream user is ever going to care about these specs, but rather what the phone can do.
medi01 - Wednesday, July 8, 2009 - link
Wouldn't it be better to review alternatives? Like Samsung's new shiny MOLED display smartphone?wuyanxu - Wednesday, July 8, 2009 - link
superb article! a lot more indepth than all other websites. would love to see more like this, with more information on how the graphics cores improved its performance.however, what you should not forget is avaliability of jailbreak for 3GS. in the conclusion you've mentioned the hassle of re-launching apps. with a jailbreak, you will be able to send an app to background and get instant re-lanuch.
my dream phone would be an iPhone with Andriod-like pull-down status bar notification system, and have JB's backgrounder come as standard.
the pull down status bar will have the top 2/3 to be notifications. press to launch its apps. the bottom 1/3 will be icons of opened apps, and to close it, simply drag the icon to a reserved area.
the idea is similar to a jailbroken app called mQuickDo, except with the notification system.