It’s no secret that the current generation of BlackBerrys have a terrible browser. So, the news that BB OS 6 would run a webkit browser (the same code behind iOS’s Safari and the Android Browser), was pretty huge for all the BB users in the house.
But not all Webkit browsers are created equal, right? So how does the new browser hold up against the competition, especially with RIM’s server-side compression? Crackberry have pitted their Torch 9800 against two of the hottest (and fastest) phones on the market: the iPhone 4 and the Samsung/AT&T Captivate.
So, how does it compare?
Not bad. It’s furlongs ahead of their old browser, so BB fans can relax, but it is still slightly slower (“a matter of a few seconds”) than the iPhone 4 and the Captivate. This could very well be due to the Torch’s significantly slower 624Mhz processor (rather than inefficient browser code) so this race isn’t exactly 1:1.
The results are clear, though: the new browser is heaven compared to the old, and still fast enough to compete with the big boys.