iPod touch Speed Test: How Much Faster is 50%?
In typical Apple fashion, they announced the new third generation iPod touch 32GB and 64GB as being 50% faster than the previous generation (the 8GB is the same old bag as last year), with nary a word on what chipsets made it so.
Well, some digging has been done, and some benches have been marked, and the early word is… zoom zoom.
Macworld’s tests show some impressive gains. Boot went down from 31 to 19 seconds. Launching apps went from 12, 20, and 10 seconds to 7, 15, and 5 for Peggle, HR Battle, and Rolando 2 respectively. Web page rendering for the NYT site was down from 34 to 15 seconds, and the Sunspider JS test went from 34.2 to 15.6 seconds.
So, yeah, about 50%.
TUAW, meanwhile, went to the heart of the matter, and discovered that the new iPod touch shares similar, if slightly incremented internals over this year’s iPhone 3GS. More plainly, same Samsung ARM Cortex A8 processor (S5L8922X, however, as opposed to the iPhone 3GS S5L8920X). No word yet on what may be different, if anything about the PowerVR SGX graphic core, but as we heard already, the 802.11n potential is in the WiFi chip.
The second generation iPod touch was faster than the iPhone 3G, so it’s not hard to imagine lack of cell-radio concerns and slightly new components could push the third generation iPod touch across the finish line before the iPhone 3GS as well.
September 15th, 2009 at 2:01 pm
First!!!
September 15th, 2009 at 2:27 pm
Ever notice how these guys: http://www.iphonehill.com/ just seem to scrape entire stories from TiPb?
September 15th, 2009 at 3:18 pm
I hate imposters..
September 15th, 2009 at 5:41 pm
@Andy
loser!!!
Seriously? Get a life buddy.
September 15th, 2009 at 5:50 pm
No joke Andy. I’ve seen you write first on several stories. Are you just following the Twitter and jumping on it first or what? In short, get a life.
September 15th, 2009 at 6:34 pm
If things load twice as fast wouldn’t that be 100% faster?
September 15th, 2009 at 8:38 pm
7th……
September 15th, 2009 at 8:57 pm
8th…lol
September 15th, 2009 at 9:49 pm
@C good call!!! I was thinking exactly the same thing!
September 16th, 2009 at 7:27 am
So the hardware is impressive,and i reAlly lack some RAM to start Gangstar so 3g will be a good gaming device.even without the camera
September 16th, 2009 at 10:14 am
I’ve just gone to New York Times on the N97, 5 seconds over 3G, now that’s better !
September 16th, 2009 at 10:15 am
No C that would be 200% faster
September 16th, 2009 at 10:27 am
If it’s loading in half the time, then it’s “Twice as fast”.
I believe that means it is “%100 faster” in normal terms.
It’s a weird discussion because we are used to thinking of % faster in the other direction. A car that is traveling 100mph is traveling half as fast as one at 200mph. The car at 200mph is 100% faster than the car at 100mph. A car at 300mph is 200% faster than the car at 100mph.
I think this all makes sense. Please correct!
September 16th, 2009 at 10:30 am
@Chico Dude,did you ever see a site in mobile safari,it looks almost the same as on the desktop… and every other browser is just…
September 16th, 2009 at 11:03 am
if it goes from 10 to 5 seconds, it’s 50 percent faster because it’s 50 percent of 10.
if it goes from 5 to 10 seconds, it’s 100 percent slower, because it’s 100 percent of 5.
September 16th, 2009 at 11:04 am
@kaydot: You are right indeed. 100% faster. I was about to post the same remark whan I saw your comment.
September 16th, 2009 at 11:11 am
100% faster would be virtually down to zero (or instantaneous)…. So 50% faster is correct…
September 16th, 2009 at 11:13 am
David is right. You have to place the percentage on the newer or faster object. The car analogy stands but the percentage is on the faster car: 100mph vs. 200mph. 50% of 200mph is 100mph, thus a 50% increase. Right???
September 16th, 2009 at 11:17 am
I disagree, “faster” refers to speed, not to duration, and half the wait means twice the speed.
September 16th, 2009 at 11:25 am
Actually, Tap Tap, doing the math, you’re right. For the increase in speed it should be 100%. I concede!
September 16th, 2009 at 11:28 am
TapTap is correct. Its speed not duration.
if ‘A’ moves at 100mph and ‘B’ moves at 150mph then B is 50% faster or a 50% increase. To confuse the subject more you could also say that ‘B’ moves at 150% of the speed of ‘A’.
September 16th, 2009 at 11:29 am
nay says the scientist. If you say “faster than” then you’re using the first object as the reference. thus 100% faster would be correct
September 16th, 2009 at 12:11 pm
You guys need a refresh, what is 50 percent as a decimal .. .5 100 percent is 1 and 200 percent is 2, so if the touch is twice as fast then it is 200 percent faster
September 16th, 2009 at 12:42 pm
Dickalan: it’s 50% FASTER. You are correct that 50% is .5, but saying “I improved my speed by 50%” does not mean you took twice as long to finish. It means you multiply your old speed by .5 and add that to your old speed. Essentially you’re doing 3 units of work in the amount of time it used to take you to do 2 units of work.
September 16th, 2009 at 12:42 pm
So what’s the battery life like in comparison? For example, how many hours of play in a given game/app on the new device vs the old one? Always good to know if the increase in performance has sapped battery life.
September 16th, 2009 at 1:34 pm
All are wrong!!! It is faster because Apple said it is. Never mind how fast, just go out and spend spend spend.
September 17th, 2009 at 8:37 am
@27th
Start thinking about learning to count.