My OperaTest your speed
By Sami Serolaserola. Sunday, November 29, 2009 4:04:04 PM
Folks seems to be crazy about comparing the speeds of J2ME browsers. However, this really depends on many variables like distance and speed between client and proxy, distance and speed between requested site and proxy, and the distance and speed between client and provider. Today I present what you can do to run some more reliable speed tests.
First thing what you may like to find out is your current speed of your network. For that you need to run the speed test with your built-in browser. Otherwise you get the speed between requested site and proxy. However we may want to find out that as well, but lets start first with the network speed.
Open your phone's built-in browser. Then use Google or your favorite search engine to search for mobile speed test or just 'speed test'. The ideal speed test service is the one that is near to your location. Another problem is to find good service not using Flash interface. You may want to try www.mobilespeedtest.com. Here I used Finnish nopeustesti.tornio24.net, because it's near to me.
Personally I prefer to use GPRS aka GSM, although I have deal for unlimited 386 kbps 3G connection. So, after running the test at nopeustesti.tornio24.net using built-in browser, I got approximately 45 kbps. Remember, it's good idea to run the test for several times to get the average speed. This network speed can vary a lot based on the time of day since there can be many people using the same link station at the same time.
Next we may like to know how fast the J2ME proxy server retrieves the files from Internet. Now we can open for example our favorite Opera Mini browser. Then go to same speed test service and run the test. If the test service give you an option to download very large files, then choose that option. For Opera Mini server I got approximately 30 Mbps. Then I ran the same test on BOLT browser and got 3 Mbps. And why is that? I would say it's because the Opera Mini proxy and nopeustesti.tornio24.net are close to me.
The same test using www.mobilespeedtest.com gave 4.5 Mbps for Opera Mini and 9 Mbps for BOLT. And why is that? It's because both, the BOLT server and www.mobilespeedtest.com are far from my location.
And what we learn from this? I think we should not trust on reviews that claim some J2ME browser is much faster than the other.
Thomas Oneclicksamoht1 # Sunday, November 29, 2009 4:57:31 PM
Phone Browser: 150kbps
Mini 4.2: 4.100kbps
EDIT
Bolt http: 8.400kbps
Bolt socket: 14.100kbps
Sami Serolaserola # Sunday, December 27, 2009 7:00:25 AM
If you use direct connection, like on built-in browser or Opera Mobile without turbo, then you get the speed for your phone. But if you have proxy server in between, like used on Opera Mini or when Opera Turbo used on Opera Mobile, then you get the download speed for the proxy server.
Remember, theres full browser running on Opera Mini proxy server. If you do the speed test on Opera Mini, then you actually do the speed test for the browser running on Opera Mini proxy server.