We did see some blood on the battle field yesterday  and am now pitching them in a YouTube  round to find out which browser packs the  strongest punch. Which browser would you bet on? Safari? Maemo? Android?. I am afraid you will have to hit on the read button to see if you got it right?

YouTube Performance Test

Adobe’s Flash needs no introduction to anyone who spends a decent amount of time on the web these days. However, this very flash support is absent on some of the most popular mobile browsers today: Safari, Opera Mini, Android to name a few. However, HTC has its version of flash compatible browser in its Hero and N900 as we know comes with full flash support (by full flash support we mean the same version of flash that we use on our desktops). Now that we have ironed out the basics of browser capabilities, let’s see how they perform in our test

Round 1: iPhone- YouTube app, G1-YouTube app, Hero-Mobile version of YouTube, N900-Desktop version of YouTube.

Ew, this is something I didn’t expect from the N900 browser, especially after acing the speedtest yesterday. On a second thought, I should highlight that YouTube apps on iPhone and G1 are not browsers, so strictly speaking I shouldn’t comparing them with Hero and N900. Now, coming to Hero it no doubt performs better than N900 for the maemo browser has to load the desktop version of YouTube while the Hero is loading the lighter (data consumption wise) mobile version.

Round 2: iPhone- YouTube app, G1-YouTube app, Hero-Mobile version of YouTube, N900-Mobile version of YouTube

To zero in on a winner, I will now compare YouTube streaming speed for the mobile version of YouTube on both Hero and N900. iPhone and G1’s YouTube apps are also included in the test just for a comparison but it is not really fair to compare them with the browsers.

What was that? The N900 was nowhere in the picture when the Hero started streaming! Also, the resolution of the video on Hero was much better than that on the N900. Seems like Google have optimized their android browser to get the best out of YouTube. Even the YouTube app on G1 fares better than the one on iPhone.

So, who really takes the honours here? Based on the tests that I carried out, I will have to say the winner is HTC flash enabled browser of the Hero. It supports flash (mobile version) and it loads webpages and flash content faster than the maemo browser. What does this say about N900 browser? It’s not really as bad as the tests I performed might suggest for the maemo browser is loaded with full flash, which may take a while to load but it lets you do everything that you can do on a desktop browser (well, almost). So what should you go for? Well, depends on your usage, if you are someone who just likes to read content from the web on their mobile phones, I would suggest the HTC Hero but if you are a heavy internet user, you should go for the N900 for it will allow you to do everything that you can do on your desktop browser. Be it blogging, or playing Farm Frenzy on facebook, the N900 browser lets you do everything you want to but its just not optimized for mobile usage yet but give it sometime and am sure the updates will make it a much faster browser than what it is today.

To zero in on a winner, I put them through several tests and threw in HTC Hero, which according to me is the best Android phone in market (as of now) and HTC G1, the legendary Google phone which gave the world the first feel of Android. Eager to know who is the winner? Hit on the read button to find out.

Speedtest

Well I first started with the Speedtest on the devices using the services of speedtest.net as the benchmark. The service guages your net connection and summarises the upload and download speeds accessible from your devices. This is rather a hardware test than the browser but its the combination of both which matters when you are browsing and that’s why this test was the first on my list. Let’s see how our smartphones fare in this litmus test.

Needless to say N900 wins by a handsome margin over G1 and Hero and by rather a slim margin over the iPhone. Please note that this test reflects better Wi-Fi radio reception rather than browser speeds.

Webpage Test

Ok, we know that the N900 has an edge in the Wi-Fi reception, lets now see how it fares in load times of an actual webpage and whats better than our very blog, which has a fair amount of Flash content, along with images and other data intensive scripts.

While we saw that the G1 was the first to finish loading the page, we should note that it’s browser doesn’t support flash and as a result, it may have suceeded in loading the blog page faster than the other browser. The same goes with Safari on iPhone. But, between Hero and N900, it can be seen that the Hero loaded the blog page marginally faster than N900.

It’s rather too early to declare a winner here for I have carried out a few more tests. Apparently, YouTube doesn’t work as fast as I do and its taking me ages to upload those videos. So, stay tuned for more tests and conclusion of the battle of the browsers.

P.S- The tests couldn’t have been carried out without the assistance of my friends-ARD, Deeps and Horizon guy. Thanks a ton guys.

There are leaked information of Dell’s Android handset called The Streak that carries a huge 5-inch display and similar features. Included are some photos of Dell’s The Streak. It has a 5-inch WVGA 800×480 touch screen display with true MID. Also, it features 3G WWAN, Wi-Fi, and Bluetooth connectivity and microSD support for extending your memory. Not much information has been given on this phone compared to the Nokia N900.

But the Nokia N900 is no pushover either. Tagged as “Experience the speed and raw power of the high-performance Nokia N900 mobile computer.”, the newest offering from the Finland-based Mobile giant is powered by the OMAP 3430 ARM Cortex A8 processor with three microprocessors bringing a lot of raw power. This microprocessor provides a generous boost on the phone’s graphics, communication and multimedia features. Memory is a whopping 1GB, which enables the phone’s user to open more applications simultaneously.

Text messaging, e-mail checking, web browsing, mobile audio listening, FM radio and GPS are just some of the exciting features that come with this phone. Among other hardware features include a full QWERTY keyboard, a 5-megapixel camera, Bluetooth, WIFI and an impressive 32GB internal memory that is a direct swipe with the iPhone’s biggest capacity.  And you can extend the phone’s memory up to 16 GB of additional storage with an external microSD card.

Can Dell’s Android handset knock the much-hyped features of our beloved Nokia N900 phone? All of these are plainly speculation. The proof of the pudding is in the eating. We will determine these facts when all these products are out in the market.