The Palm Pre’s Hardware
I’ve gone through this performance comparison once before but I’ll quickly summarize it here. The iPhone and iPhone 3G both use an ARM11 based CPU running at 412MHz. The Palm Pre uses an ARM Cortex A8 based CPU running at 600MHz. The Cortex A8 is significantly faster than the ARM11; while both are very simple in-order cores, the A8 is capable of fetching/decoding/executing/retiring two instructions at the same time - the ARM11 can only do one. Palm has the overwhelming raw horsepower advantage with its hardware, as it should, the Pre was designed much later than the original iPhone (note that the new 3GS should match the Pre in terms of hardware prowess).
Given the incredible performance advantage of the Pre’s hardware, you would expect it to be much faster than the iPhone 3G. Unfortunately, that’s only partially true. Let’s start with some basic application tests:
| Application Launch Time in Seconds | Web Browser | Dialer | Google Maps | Camera | |
| Apple iPhone 3G (3.0) | 1.1 s | 1.7 s | 3.8 s | 4.6 s | 1.2 s |
| Palm Pre | 3.0 s | 1.5 s | 8.6 s | 4.4 s | 3.3 s |
| T-Mobile G1 | 5.4 s | 2.0 s | 4.4 s | 4.9 s | 2.0 s |
Despite a significant processing power advantage, the Pre launches most applications slower than the iPhone 3G. I suspect that we’re bound mostly by the read speed of the Pre’s Flash memory, but even then there’s no reason the Pre couldn’t be at least as fast as the iPhone. The more I tested the Pre the more I realized exactly how much time Apple spent optimizing the iPhone’s OS prior to its release.
Palm made a serious mistake when attempting to duplicate Apple’s success. The iPhone gained traction because it did not allow anything to compromise the user experience; applications and even web pages were quickly evicted from memory to preserve a very fast UI. Palm, with its significant hardware advantage, was not able to accomplish the same thing here.
Even when the iPhone gets slow, it’s still smooth. The Pre’s animations are not as smooth as Apple’s. Even when the Pre does something faster than the iPhone, it fails to do it as smoothly. It all comes down to a lack of optimization; Palm could easily fix these issues, but the Pre seems a tad premature. Compared to every other smartphone on the planet, Palm did an incredible job. Compared to Apple? There’s about 10% more polish needed in the animation department.
Web Page Rendering: The Pre Advantage
Where the Pre doesn’t fail to impress is in its web page rendering performance. First, let’s look at the raw bandwidth numbers:
| 3G/EVDO | WiFi | |
| Apple iPhone 3G (3.0) | 916 KB/s | 3237 KB/s |
| Palm Pre | 881 KB/s | 3973 KB/s |
At my house Sprint’s EVDO and AT&T’s 3G network speeds were about the same. To test web page rendering performance however I visited several sites (full, not mobile versions), loading each one three times and taking the average time to load from the moment I entered the URL to the instant the progress indicator stopped animating.
| 3G/EVDO | Apple iPhone 3G (3.0) | Palm Pre |
| anandtech.com | 20.3 s | 17.2 s |
| arstechnica.com | 23.3 s | 14.0 s |
| hothardware.com | 38.9 s | 20.8 s |
| pcper.com | 43.2 s | 42.8 s |
| digg.com | 44.5 s | 30.3 s |
| techreport.com | 27.2 s | 15.2 s |
| tomshardware.com | 32.3 s | 30.3 s |
| slashdot.org | 33.5 s | 23.8 s |
| facebook.com | 37.1 s | 36.0 s |
| Palm Pre Advantage | 30% Faster |
On average, in my 3G vs. EVDO tests, the Palm Pre managed to render web pages around 30% faster than the iPhone 3G. My network bandwidth tests showed that I was getting relatively similar 3G and EVDO performance, so the rendering advantage is entirely due to the Pre’s faster processor. If anything, this is the sort of performance boost I would expect out of the iPhone 3GS when viewing web pages.
The network continues to be a large bottleneck however. Given the performance difference between the Cortex A8 and the ARM11, I would expect a larger difference in web page load speed - if we’re CPU bound at all. When I reviewed the first iPhone I surmised that we were quite CPU bound; moving to a faster internet connection (WiFi) should show an even larger gap between the Pre and the iPhone 3G if we were indeed CPU bound. Let’s see if I’m right:
| WiFi | Apple iPhone 3G (3.0) | Palm Pre | T-Mobile G1 |
| anandtech.com | 16.3 s | 8.2 s | 17.2 s |
| arstechnica.com | 17.7 s | 7.8 s | 17.8 s |
| hothardware.com | 35.2 s | 11.2 s | 24.4 s |
| pcper.com | 33.3 s | 18.0 s | 34.0 s |
| digg.com | 34.3 s | 22.1 s | 40.0 s |
| techreport.com | 24.1 s | 9.0 s | 20.5 s |
| tomshardware.com | 21.4 s | 13.8 s | 26.0 s |
| slashdot.org | 26.0 s | 20.9 s | 46.0 s |
| facebook.com | 31.7 s | 19.6 s | 37.7 s |
| Palm Pre Advantage vs iPhone 3G | 83% Faster |
Remove some of the network bottleneck and the Pre stretches its legs; the gap now grows to 83%. Not only is the iPhone very CPU bound even while rendering web pages, it’s even more so on WiFi. For the WiFi results I also included the T-Mobile G1, which uses a 528MHz ARM11 processor (compared to the 412MHz ARM11 core in the iPhone 3G). The faster CPU isn't enough to really outperform the iPhone 3G, while it does pull ahead in some cases it isn't consistently faster. Apple needed to use the Cortex A8 to guarantee significant performance improvements in the 3GS.
Given that the iPhone 3GS is expected to use similar hardware to the Pre, this is the sort of performance improvement I would expect to see out of the new 3GS.
It’s Time for Multi-Core
Anyone who has owned an iPhone has experienced the stalling problem. Whether it’s switching between applications, clicking on a link or just trying to unlock your phone, occasionally the process will take much, much longer than expected. We’ve been spoiled by having multi-core processors everywhere since 2005, we haven’t forgotten the lessons behind why single-core is bad have we?
A single core microprocessor without SMT can only operate on a single thread of instructions at a time. Unfortunately for single core processors, we often have tens if not hundreds of threads contending for their attention. Thankfully these CPUs operate at millions if not billions of cycles per second and a good scheduler can cycle through many threads, hundreds of times per second.
If everything works ok, there’s nothing to worry about. All of your running threads each get a slice of time and cycle through until they’re complete. As with most things, the scheduling world doesn’t always work like that. Every now and then the scheduler will pick a thread to execute on the CPU that won’t relinquish its control, or the scheduler will screw up and keep picking the wrong thread for execution (e.g. a background task instead of a foreground task). In these situations you get what feels like a a frozen system.
The iPhone appears to handle these situations very well. The app will either take a long time to respond or it will simply crash and exit. Sometimes the phone will require a hardware reset to recover but most of the time it just behaves strangely for a bit.
The move to multiple cores helps alleviate this scenario by giving the OS a second core to schedule threads on. In the event that one core is busy and can’t handle a more immediate, at least to the end user, task the second core is there to help things remain smooth and responsive.
Luckily, ARM has just the solution - the Cortex A9. The Cortex A9 is an out-of-order ARM processor (the first of its kind) that supports multi-core configurations. The ARM11 actually supports multi-core configurations as well but I don’t expect many manufacturers to step back from the A8 to a multi-core ARM11 processor.
I’m expecting the multi-core A9 transition to happen in the next 12 months. If Apple is particularly ambitious (or feeling threatened), it could attempt to bring about app-level multitasking and multi-core at the same time next year.
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palmpre - Sunday, June 21, 2009 - link
Thank you for this great article / review !!The Pre isn't available in France, but many wait already for it !
http://www.palmpre-fr.net">http://www.palmpre-fr.net
JC Strat - Sunday, June 21, 2009 - link
Hi JMaine, it seems like you have been reading a lot lately.Just to quote from some of your messages here:
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I've been reading a lot about the Palm Pre's problems since launch - overheating, poor battery life, and software crashes. Don't forget that a smart phone's function is to be a phone first, and everything else after. If you can't use its features without affecting it's essential functionality as a phone, it's a failure.
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#2
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I've been reading many reports about battery issues with the Pre. Multi-tasking implemented poorly is far worse than not having multi-tasking at all. I feel this feature add a level of complexity not many mainstream users will appreciate and is an unnecessary waste of battery life, which contradict the primary purpose a smart-'phone' is there for.
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It sounds like you have been trolling for reasons to put down the Pre. I think the multitasking on the Pre is pretty brilliant. I like having 5 apps open. Currently on my mac I have iTunes playing, this web page open (with other tabs as well), a Finder window open, MS Word is open so I could cut and paste your comments, Xee is open from some recent picture work, etc. I think it's not all that complex, anyone with a PC or a mac understands how to have several programs open. The Pre's cards accomplish switching elegantly.
Now, you seem to have been looking around carefully for stories of people who had problems with their Pre so that you could cast them as general problems in forums such as this one. Why? A strong competitor will make Apple develop a better iPhone. It is in your interest for the Pre to succeed!
Palm has innovated with this phone. As Apple did before it, Palm has implemented ideas that will shape the direction phones go in. Innovation is a good thing. Using FUD to sabotage and stifle it as your comments seem to do is not cool.
The0ne - Sunday, June 21, 2009 - link
If the comments doesn't shout "trolling" then I don't know what will :Djap0nes - Saturday, June 20, 2009 - link
I think this is one of the worst reviews I've ever seen, and never expected to come from Anand in person. Why do I think that? Basically, because it's not a review, it's a comparison: Palm Pre vs. iPhone.On every single page Apple/iPhone is cited. Okay, they're competitors and all, but when Pre has an advantage, there are comments like 'Apple should do that'. That's ridiculous. I've never seen an review with comments like these. Pure fanboyism.
Please, change the title of the article to: 'Can Palm beat my Iphone' or something like that.
The0ne - Sunday, June 21, 2009 - link
I have to agree with you. I'm not entirely sure why so many users are applauding the review because they think it's an "in depth review." It's not. It's a "got a new phone to compare to Iphone and have to get a general review out ASAP fever/syndrome.I'll be waiting for the "in depth review" of the Pre from Anandtech soon.
However, if reviews use the Iphone as the criteria in the first place you will have reviews such as this one. Unless the Iphone really does set standards I would have to say it's not going to change until people find standards to test phones too. For example, if battery lasts 3hours+ than it should qualify as being a good phone. It shouldn't be said that the Pre is "lagging" or "isn't better" than the Iphone. That's just really giving a bad impression to those that actually do testing in real life. If anything it makes the author look bad IMO.
7Enigma - Tuesday, June 23, 2009 - link
And I'll disagree with you both. :) While a traditional review focuses primarily on the product at hand, this one works for a very good reason that Anand restated over and over. The iPhone has been the dominant force in the "smart" phone for several years now with really no direct competition. There were products that had more functionality, more horsepower, but none that had the complete package. The iPhone didn't and still doesn't but it came the closest. So it makes total sense to compare the Pre directly.It is very similar to the cpu market where you have basically 2 competetors. Could you imagine a new AMD cpu coming out and having no comparisons with the i7? Of course not. The current "best", be that from performance, functionality, or the package deal of all aspects, should always be directly compared to give the reader the best information to making a buying decision.
Now cpu's are easy and objective decisions. You run 10 benchmarks, compare hard data, and declare a winner. Obviously a phone is a different beast. It has an OS, and this makes for subjective issues. What I like you may not like. What I think is functional you may find annoying. But the fact is that Anand, who many of us highly respect for honest and detailed articles/reviews, seems to have a good grasp on the smartphone market, and is ACTIVELY looking for an upgrade option to the iPhone.
Just like we are always looking for a gpu/cpu upgrade by comparing how much better the new part is than our current part, Anand is saying the Pre is coming out years after the iPhone, so it had better damn well match or exceed in all areas that the iPhone already "perfected".
And I think most of us saw through the article to the underlying message, which was to inflate the level of competition between Apple and Palm so that we, the consumer, benefits in the end.
jap0nes - Tuesday, June 23, 2009 - link
I understand what you say and I agree with you, but that didn't happen in the article. I partially understand when you say that "And I think most of us saw through the article to the underlying message, which was to inflate the level of competition between Apple and Palm so that we, the consumer, benefits in the end", but in the end the "review" sounded ridiculous, towards fanboyism.jmaine - Saturday, June 20, 2009 - link
Anand,Thanks for a really well written comparison between the Pre and the iPhone. A few comments:
"The multitasking ability of the Pre is honestly one of two features I really, really wish my iPhone had. Multitasking has been done by many smartphones before the Pre or iPhone, but no one has done it as smooth and as Apple-like as Palm. "
I've been reading many reports about battery issues with the Pre. Multi-tasking implemented poorly is far worse than not having multi-tasking at all. I feel this feature add a level of complexity not many mainstream users will appreciate and is an unnecessary waste of battery life, which contradict the primary purpose a smart-'phone' is there for.
As you noted in the article, Apple built up it's UI and feature set, gradually perfecting each with every successive update. Do you think battery life is a strong reason for them not adding multi-tasking beyond the ipod music into the iPhone? I personally feel push notifications is a better implementation than true multi-tasking on a phone.
Doommidget - Saturday, June 20, 2009 - link
Had to create a login to address something that made me laugh...Thank you for a great review, although I don't hold out much hope of the Pre hitting the UK in the near future. I also think it is right to heavily compare the Pre to the iPhone given that it is the only credible competition for a very user friendly and fairly feature full phone (and by features I don't mean crammed with hardware I mean the services).
I just have to say, to anybody trying to mention Nokia as producing better phones than the iPhone with S60 having more functionality and the handsets having better hardware... this may be true but Nokias implementation is waaaay off. Every new flagship N series phone is plagued with software issues... N95, N96, expect the N97 will follow shortly. 5800 is also terrible for software problems. The list of handsets with poor reliability extends further back than that and will no doubt carry on into the future. Irrespective of whether the hardware in the Nokia phone is quicker, or the camera is better, or the handset is more open, if you have to have your phone replaced or repaired 5 times within a few months of purchasing then to be honest it really isnt worthy of comparison. And I know not everybody has had issues before I get flamed, myself being one of them as I moved from an N95 8GB to the iPhone 3G, but working in the mobile phone market, I can tell you that there are no end of Nokia software problems and virtually no issues with iPhone OS or the hardware.
So iPhone > N series pretty much every time; it may not have 2 processors, open bluetooth, great camera etc, but at least it works.
On a side note, I bet Nokia don't have a 5 day turnaround for fixing or replacing a handset that comes back to them.
Its all about the ecosystem that surrounds the handset, people in the top end of the market are becoming less impressed with pure hardware these days and are looking for more out of their phone with regards to web integration and services, and Apple have pretty much got everything down to a T as it currently stands.
So yes, compare the Pre to the iPhone, the Pre looks potentially worthy as an alternative, but not quite there.
And don't ever try to compare a Nokia to an iPhone, not even in the same ballpark as the iPhone ^_^
/wave
finbarqs - Saturday, June 20, 2009 - link
YES! Now I can sync with my Exchange!!!!