23/06/2010 By Charlie Sorrel ( Source: http://www.wired.com )

iPhone 4 Torn Down and Tested: Slower Than iPad, Faster Than 3G

Hardware and software tests of the iPhone 4 and iOS 4 have started to show up, and there are a few surprises. Those brand-new iPad owners looking jealously at the fancy new iPhone can relax, though: the iPad is still the fastest piece of Apple mobile hardware out there.

MacRumors has run the numbers using benchmark Geekbench and Checkup apps for iOS, and although the tests were complicated by the fact that not all the test software runs on all the platforms, the iPad came out tops, closely followed by the iPhone 4, with the iPhone 3G coming in last.

This is a little mysterious, as iFixit, the King of the Teardown, has already ripped open the iPhone4 to reveal that it does indeed use the same 1GHz A4 processor as the iPad, and also has double the RAM (512MB vs. 256MB). We strongly suspect that the chip is being under-clocked inside the iPhone to both keep things cooler in the tight confines of its case and to conserve battery life.

The iFixit teardown reveals some other surprises. The battery is not soldered in place, making it easy to replace. Very easy, in fact, as the two screws on the bottom edge release the back glass plates panel, giving instant access to the battery. Not so good is the new bonded display. It may be tougher, and make the pixels look closer to the surface, but the glass, LCD and digitizer are all one unit, meaning cracked screens will be a lot more expensive to replace.

But what of older hardware? Well, if you have the older 3G, you might not want to upgrade the OS. Flickr user Adrian Nier has posted a side-by-side video of two iPhones 3G, one running the new iOS4 and the other still on iOS 3.1.3. He tests the startup time, the camera, loads a web page (the now-traditional NYT, of course) and accesses the settings. Surprisingly, the phone running 3.1.3 is significantly, obviously faster. See for yourself:


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iPhone 4 Torn Down and Tested: Slower Than iPad, Faster Than 3G

* By Charlie Sorrel Email Author
* June 23, 2010 |
* 7:14 am |
* Categories: Phones
*

An exploded view of the iPhone 4 from iFixit

Hardware and software tests of the iPhone 4 and iOS 4 have started to show up, and there are a few surprises. Those brand-new iPad owners looking jealously at the fancy new iPhone can relax, though: the iPad is still the fastest piece of Apple mobile hardware out there.

MacRumors has run the numbers using benchmark Geekbench and Checkup apps for iOS, and although the tests were complicated by the fact that not all the test software runs on all the platforms, the iPad came out tops, closely followed by the iPhone 4, with the iPhone 3G coming in last.

This is a little mysterious, as iFixit, the King of the Teardown, has already ripped open the iPhone4 to reveal that it does indeed use the same 1GHz A4 processor as the iPad, and also has double the RAM (512MB vs. 256MB). We strongly suspect that the chip is being under-clocked inside the iPhone to both keep things cooler in the tight confines of its case and to conserve battery life.

The iFixit teardown reveals some other surprises. The battery is not soldered in place, making it easy to replace. Very easy, in fact, as the two screws on the bottom edge release the back glass plates panel, giving instant access to the battery. Not so good is the new bonded display. It may be tougher, and make the pixels look closer to the surface, but the glass, LCD and digitizer are all one unit, meaning cracked screens will be a lot more expensive to replace.

But what of older hardware? Well, if you have the older 3G, you might not want to upgrade the OS. Flickr user Adrian Nier has posted a side-by-side video of two iPhones 3G, one running the new iOS4 and the other still on iOS 3.1.3. He tests the startup time, the camera, loads a web page (the now-traditional NYT, of course) and accesses the settings. Surprisingly, the phone running 3.1.3 is significantly, obviously faster. See for yourself:

This is not so surprising. The iPhone 3G is capable of running iOS4, but doesn’t get many of its goodies, including multitasking. It is also a three-year-old hardware design, and if you bought one back the, you should be eligible for an upgrade to the new iPhone anyway. For the record, my latest-gen iPod Touch (32GB) runs as fast as it did before. There seems to be no slowdown on an already very fast device.

To delve even deeper into the innards of Apple’s latest, head over to Chipworks, which carries on where iFixit leaves off. If you want to see pictures of the new 5MP camera’s sensor taken with an electron microscope, that’s the place to go.