When we compared web browser speed on the Apple iPhone and RIM BlackBerry Bold back in August, little did we realise that our test had one or two problems that rendered it invalid. We’ve been trying to arrange a repeat test ever since then, with no success. Until now.

The reason we ran the test in the first place (we seldom bother comparing smartphone web browser speeds) was because the BlackBerry Bold seemed very slow at rendering web pages over both 3G and Wi-Fi – even compared to the iPhone over EDGE. While our initial test was flawed (thanks to a flaky Wi-Fi connection), other Bold owners repeated it and many also found it to be slow.

Still, we weren’t able to rest until we could repeat the test ourselves and so that’s what we’ve (finally) done – after the cut.

For the test, both smartphones were connected to the same Wi-Fi network and both had their mobile data connections disabled. We ran two sets of tests – one with JavaScript disabled on both devices (to reflect the BlackBerry Bold’s default configuration) and one with it enabled.

As you can see, the BlackBerry Bold performs much more respectably this time around, although the iPhone is still quicker most of the time. Of course this isn’t a scientific test performed under laboratory conditions, it’s just an informal comparison.

So, it seems that with the latest firmware, at least, the BlackBerry Bold is considerably nippier than when we last tested it. Better late than never, eh?

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