It’s rather surprising this comparison took such a long time to take place, but nonetheless, ArsTechnica published the image below comparing the performance of Android 2.2’s web browser against iOS4’s mobile Safari in two respected JavaScript benchmarks.

SunSpider

The SunSpider JavaScript benchmark measures the amount of time a certain number of various JavaScript operations take to complete. A lower score means the operations completed more quickly, and the Nexus One running Froyo beats the iPhone 4 in this regard by a sizeable ~50%.

V8

The V8 benchmark (an open source benchmark maintained by Google) tests the robustness of a phone’s ability to move through rigorous JavaScript actions found on many modern, complex web pages. Here, the Nexus One on Android 2.2 defeats the iPhone 4 by, well, a factor of 4 (about 300% better performance).

Conclusion

My own Nexus One running CyanogenMod 6 Alpha 1, which uses the Froyo browser, scored a 6185.4ms on the SunSpider benchmark, and a V8 score that consistently landed between 240 and 250.

Apple, your move.

Credit: ArsTechnica