13 
Like we weren’t excited about the Galaxy Nexus enough already. The crew at AnandTech has been busily benchmarking Android’s new flagship against Apple’s top performer. The results? The Galaxy Nexus is the new king of the hill in some key areas.
In the SunSpider Javascript Benchmark (version 0.9.1) the Galaxy Nexus scored a very speedy 1879 versus the iPhone 4S’s 2250. Obviously, lower is better in this test. The Nexus also outperformed the 4S in the Rightware BrowserMark test, scoring 98,272 versus the 4S’s 87,841 (higher is better). The translation of this clusterflock of numbers is that page rendering on the Galaxy Nexus should be faster. Experientially, our Mat Honan found web browsing on the Nexus to be very quick indeed. The thing is the processor on the Galaxy Nexus is nothing otherworldly, which means that Ice Cream Sandwich (Android 4.0) has made some serious software enhancements. In other words, when ICS comes to a phone or tablet with beefier specs it’s going to give you whiplash.
But don’t worry, Apple fans, when it came to the graphics processing benchmarks the iPhone 4S and the iPad 2 both beat the Galaxy Nexus. The Nexus did extremely well, just not as well. This means that, theoretically, gaming performance and other graphically intensive tasks should be slightly better on those iDevices. You can see all of the numbers over at AnandTech.
Benchmarking is a handy tool to give you relative, objective numbers about how a device performs. That said, these numbers don’t always translate to user experience. I’ve tested phones that benchmarked well, but then were slow and terrible to use in practice. However, in this case preliminary testing of the Galaxy Nexus has been extremely favorable (as it has been with the iPhone 4S, obviously), so it’s nice to hear that there are some raw numbers to back up these first impressions. [AnandTech via 9to5Mac]
The real story here is ICS is much better optimized cause there is no way that CPU is that much better performing than the GS2 one.
Yeh ICS is optimized for dual core and Ginger Bread isn’t.
Can you do the fandango?
That’s great and all, but I’m distracted by the way you’ve described the difference in the graphics processing benchmarks, 29.3 versus the 4S’s 73.1 (higher the better)… So, it comes out ‘extremely well, just not [half as well as the 4S]‘.
The Galaxy Nexus is without a doubt the best Android phone on the market, which is slightly faster in browser performance than the iPhone 4S, and substantially slower(?) than the iPhone 4S in graphics processing.
Yeah, nice choice of words heh. But 3D gaming on phones is totally overrated so GPU performance just ain’t that useful of a benchmark for the majority of users. Disclaimer: At least not yet
The only games I’ve ever played on a mobile have been those 2D games like Cut the Rope and Angry Birds, even then I’ve only played them for five mins every now and then. Until these phones get controls like the PSP or work out some other way to control them but the screen, you’ll never be able to play 3D games well on a Smart Phone.
So I wouldn’t worry about GPU performance because a. what games will even push the Nexus? b Would you really want to play Gamelofts crappy rip offs anyways? I would rather go on my Laptop or wait till I get home and play real games.
You just have to think would you rather be on an open platform that you customise and choose the software you want to use? Or do you want to be told how to use your phone and have no options but what is on iTunes? I personally cannot stand iTunes and I don’t know anyone who has fun using it, just treat the phone as a storage space and let me drag what I want on it!
Personal preference aside, the fact is people buy and play 3D graphics ‘heavy’ games on their mobiles, and they run better on iOS devices (4S, iPad 2) then they do on Android devices. It may not be a selling point for you, or for me, it’s just a fact of the benchmarks and the figures.
Both phones are fantastic, if you like Android you get the best phone money can buy in the Galaxy Nexus, if you like iOS you get the best phone money can buy in the iPhone 4S, both perform extremely well across the board, but the iPhone 4S has more than double the graphics performance to that of the Galaxy Nexus.
To be honest, while mobile gaming can’t touch console/PC gaming, it’s still a massive market. Games like Infinity Blade have sold five million+ paid downloads, the game runs like a legless dog on the 3GS but is as smooth as silk on the 4S (and I assume runs well on the 4). 5 million sales of a graphics heavy game shows that this benchmark is useful, but I suppose it’s all relative…
Yeah, who really cares?
I’d take faster browser performance and an incredible display, over getting 123 FPS in a useless 720p openGL test. iPhone can’t even do 720p anyway so these numbers are even more theoretical.
I don’t care one bit about 3D gaming on my phone, because the controls *STILL SUCK AND WILL ALWAYS SUCK*.
Millions of people do care about 3D gaming on their mobile devices, and that’s why it’s worth pointing out. Both phones have super fast browsers, and gorgeous displays.
And 3d will certainly feature more and more with games, but don’t forget, they will still have to be scripted for the majority of handsets available at release, and with the iOS ecosystem that means the iphone 4 & 3GS. All the extra horespower of the iphone 4s is wasted and meaningless for at least another year. Take further into account that it would be foolish for a developer to release solely on one platform now and you have further evidence that the iphone4s will unlikely ever be maxed out within its release window. Have a look at PC gaming for a prime example of this. All games released on the PC are designed to run on current midrange and often low range hardware to maximise their title’s sales potential.
With Infinity Blade 2 coming out next month, only on the 4S (and iPad 2?), I think you’ll find that at least one major developer is making use of the 4S’s extra horsepower this year. I wouldn’t say it’s wasted, but I do get your point. I suppose it’s good that it has that horsepower now as lots of people will have signed up for two-year contracts, so having room to grow will mean that they don’t have an underpowered device next year etc?
“when it came to the graphics processing benchmarks the iPhone 4S and the iPad 2 both beat the Galaxy Nexus. The Nexus did extremely well, just not as well. ”
Mmmm….The first graphics test shows the iPhone 4S beating the Nexus by 249% and the second graphics benchmark shows the iPhone 4S beating the Nexus by 272%. “just not as well” indeed!
My SE Arc S beats this score using Opera Mobile 11.51
(it’s some way behind with the stock browser throu).
So, if you want Nexus beating performance, you don’t need to shell out for a new phone, just get a better browser.
It’s a brand new flagship phone for Android so I’d expect it to beat the 4S. In a real world situtation would you notice though ? Until LTE is standard the data connection is more of a bottleneck than the browser performance
I think most of my mobile browsing actually happens either in my house when I can’t be bothered to move to get my laptop or down the pub (where wifi is practically the norm these days)
Now I’m even more excited to get ICS on my Galaxy S II
Holy molly, I can load pages 0.5 seconds faster on another phone? THEN WHO CARES ABOUT ANY OTHER ASPECT, LET’S ALL BUY NEXUSES.
I don’t believe that that is what the article is saying at all. Please calm down.
Currently on iPhone 4, I’m due an upgrade next month.
Was hesitating between either the S2 or the Nexus, but looking at these benchmarks I think I’ll definitely go with the S2. Screen might be smaller, but I believe it’s better quality (please correct me if I’m wrong), the camera has higher MP (although i realise more MP doens’t mean better quality), much better GPU by the looks of it, and things can only improve once it gets ICS.