According to benchmarks performed on the iPad by Iconfactory developer Craig Hockenberry, the device is roughly twice as fast as the iPhone 3GS when running native applications. In native performance tests, the iPad bested the 3GS in each, ranging from 1.5x to 3.91x faster.
The same improvement was not seen in the Javascript performance tests, in which the iPad was 1.2x to 2.43x as fast as the 3GS. Hockenberry attributes the results to possible “just-in-time compilation or other similar types of caching are affecting the results.” He also notes that the iPad reports having 247MB of physical memory and 200.5 available to the user, suggesting the device is using 256MB memory chips with a portion of the total being used for other purposes.
Hockenberry tested the devices using the OS version they shipped with; iPhone OS 3.2 for the iPad and iPhone OS 3.0 for the iPhone 3GS.
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