Another Bowser Thread...

[tcat007]

I keep bouncing between browsers, thought Boat Mini was my fav, now Dolphin HD... So I thought I'd do an interesting test on the 3 browsers I have on my Galaxy Player 5.0. I turned on Power Tudor to test average power consumed in an application. Then opened 4 browser URL's (Facebook, Google, My Yahoo, and Pbase), and within each opened one article or page or search. I timed each from opening the browser to exit. Same pages and searches in each.

Boat Mini: 1 minute, 26 seconds, used 733 mW of juice
XScope: 1 minute, 48 seconds, used 661 mW of juice
Dolphin HD: 1 minute, 58 seconds, used 1040 mW of juice

I never thought to look at battery drain of a browser, I always looked at speed (and UI). Probably needs a longer test to be more accurate (like 10 minutes in each browser)... I may do that later.

I'm liking Xscope, all 3 were set to "android" UA, and it is the only one that you can pinch-zoom on the non-desktop pages, and the only one that lets you get rid of the notification bar (all the time). Boat-mini has a totally new UI on it's latest release, like it. Just thought I'd pass all these tidbits on.

 

[El Presidente]

Did you just like Xscope, or would you say it's the best overall package?

I keep saying I'm going to try Boat though, I just never get round to installing it.

 

[tcat007]

Haven't used it enough to know if I like it. Got it as a free Amazon app long ago, never used it much since I was a Boat fan. I really like Webzine in Dolphin, but I don't like that you can't eliminate the notification bar. One day at a time... one app at a time...

edit: After playing with each another 5 minutes per, the power usage is closer to the same. I am finding Xscope very nice in that it pinch-zooms in facebook on android UA. The new Boat looks nice, but uses valuable screen real estate for a frame to make it look "3D"... I'd rather have the extra pixels back! Going to try Xscope for a while see how it goes.

 

[El Presidente]

Well based on this thread I finally got round to installing boat and I quite like the look of it so far.

 

[aysiu]

What percentage of that battery consumption is in the launching of the app, as opposed to the running of it?

Regardless of what browser I've used (and I've tried many browsers), I've never found the web browser to be a very large percentage of my overall battery consumption (display and idle usually take up the most battery consumption).

 

[tcat007]

Just because an app uses a lot to launch, doesn't mean it's using too much battery. Maybe using 90% but only for a few seconds. It's the ones that use 20% constantly that you need to watch out for. Hard to measure what it actually uses to "launch" it's too short a span. Display does use the most if you have it on. Any monitoring app will use a lot if it's on, like I'm monitoring apps now, and power tutor is using 80%. Next highest "app" (other than system) is 1% weather and Go Launcher.

Power Tutor is using 600mW while running (I only run it a few minutes to check stuff). LCD is using about 450 mW (that's full time with screen on). So yeah, if using a browser at 500-1000mW, you are using a good percentage of battery (in any one of them). That's why I'm typing this on a PC!

What percentage of that battery consumption is in the launching of the app, as opposed to the running of it?

Regardless of what browser I've used (and I've tried many browsers), I've never found the web browser to be a very large percentage of my overall battery consumption (display and idle usually take up the most battery consumption).

 

[chanchan05]

For the battery drain difference between Boat Mini and Dolphin HD, I'll take that as should be expected, after all we're comparing an HD version to a Mini version. Proper comparison would have been between Boat HD to Dolphin HD, or Boat Mini to Dolphin Mini.

 

[OstrichSaK]

While you're comparing I would like to see how the stock browser as well as non-HD Dolphin compare. I would also like to see the same test done with the client set to Desktop in order to see how full format pages load on these various browsers since I think this is how most people choose to run their browser for comparison.

 

[tcat007]

https://market.android.com/details?...51bGwsMSwxLDEsImVkdS51bWljaC5Qb3dlclR1dG9yIl0.

I've pretty much settled on Xscope. It's the only one that lets me pinch-zoom mobile pages and instantly adjusts to correct word wrapping. Also has unlimited speed dials, and much easier way to hide notification bar.

 

[Flaviu]

Good browser... i was looking for one that allows me opening more tabs at the same time...