Nokia 9500- overall speed

I am also interested in the answer 😊

How long does it take to the browser to open a simple web page ?

Is starting an application slow ? could you give some response time examples ?

Thanks !

pierro78 wrote:How long does it take to the browser to open a simple web page ?

Depends on the page and connection. Clean, simple, non-bloated sites opens as fast as you'd expect for a mobile device. Pages with a lot of crap on them takes Opera a while to render for the screen.

Is starting an application slow ? could you give some response time examples ?

Closed apps take about 3 - 4 seconds to open. Apps that are already open start pretty much instantly (about 0.2 - 0.5 seconds - depends on the app). Symbian OS is fully multi-tasking and the 9500/9300 has plenty of RAM available to hold just about as many apps as you'd like open. I always keep my most used apps open (about 10 - 12) for instant access. Speed complaints are mostly from people who don't understand how to work with the device.

the device is kinda slow
dont expect it to be very fast

Ismail wrote:the device is kinda slow
dont expect it to be very fast

Here are some usages I am worried of :
. using the web browser on the gmail html pages (which don't look too crappy by the way)
. displaying documents, probably in simple text format. doing search on these documents.
. doing simple searches in my address book (300 contacts) by user name

(by the way I plan on buying a 9300 and I've read it might be a little faster than the 9500 ...)

pierro78 wrote:Could you give some examples ? which operations are slow and how slow they are ?

Here are some usages I am worried of :
. using the web browser on the gmail html pages (which don't look too crappy by the way)
. displaying documents, probably in simple text format. doing search on these documents.
. doing simple searches in my address book (300 contacts) by user name

(by the way I plan on buying a 9300 and I've read it might be a little faster than the 9500 ...)

I am an ex Psion user and 9210i user. I would say that most things are perfectly fast enough to open, with just one or two cautions.
If you import a large Sheet file from PC be careful. If it is over about 100k it will be slow, and if it is very large e.g. 300k upwards it can just crash the device.
But for any normal small sheet it is pretty quick and perfectly acceptable.

In Web if you access a normal HTML page such as a major newspaper it can be very slow, but does download eventually. BUt if you are using WiFi over broadband that slwo speed doesn't matter much. But I do avoid using any normal web page over GPRS as it burns up Data Allowance.

BUT if you use e.g. BBC News and select Low Graphics version it is extremely quick. My bookmarks are set to LOW version and I find it great.

pierro78 wrote:Could you give some examples ? which operations are slow and how slow they are ?

Your best bet is to try it out yourself in a shop. Speed is subjective. For me everything works just as fast as I'd expect it to. I don't find anything to be annoyingly slow.

The thing is that some people compare application opening on Symbian phones to those running Win Mobile (or even to a 'normal' mobile phone), and then start complaining about Symbian phones being slow and complain about the CPU clock speed being too low and whatnot. What those people don't understand is, first of all, that Symbian OS is much less resource hungry and don't need a 400+MHz CPU. The other thing they don't understand is that the memory structure is very different. While PPC devices keep everything in RAM, Symbian devices use flash memory for storage. Flash is obviously slower than DRAM, but the good thing about flash is that it keeps all your data securely stored, even after a power-down. Not to mention that the exit button (X) on a device running Win Mobile never actually closes down the app, just brings it to the background. Which will eventually cause instability and slow-downs on that bloated (P)OS. :tongue:

Think about a PC which uses a hard-drive to store your data (apps). Even on the fastest PC loading apps from the hard-drive into RAM can take a few seconds. It works exactly the same on a Symbian device - except that they use Flash memory instead of a hard-drive. And once that app is loaded - working with it works just as fast as you'd expect.

On a second thought there is one thing I find a bit slow on my 9300 though, and that is maneuvering around the File manager - it keeps 'updating file system...' when you browse through folders with a lot of files in them. Fortunately there is a free third party file manager named 'ProfiExplorer' where everything works instantly.

Here are some usages I am worried of :
. using the web browser on the gmail html pages (which don't look too crappy by the way)

Don't expect it to work as fast as on your computer. Expect at least 10-15 seconds for that page to fully load on GPRS (if you have a slow connection and bad coverage like me). Opera could definitely have been a bit better optimised for the Communicators. The rendering of some pages works too slowly. It's not the CPU to blame, just the software itself which should have been better optimised for the hardware.

displaying documents, probably in simple text format. doing search on these documents.

I just tested and it took 6 seconds to open a 1733 word .doc file (w/ formatting). Searching within the doc. works instantly.

doing simple searches in my address book (300 contacts) by user name

Shouldn't take more than a second. It's slower when you have thousands of contacts though, especially on the phone/cover side.

I am in the US and they don't have the 9300 in shops there yet 😞

Very good forum by the way ... Thanks a lot for the very good information ! 😊

I guess I just have to shell out the big bucks now 😉

PS :
. a little worried about the warranty in the US though 😞

. anybody has tried netfront on the older communicators ? Was it faster/better than the regular Opera ? any news of it for the newer communicators ?

pierro78 wrote:I am in the US and they don't have the 9300 in shops there yet 😞

Very good forum by the way ... Thanks a lot for the very good information ! 😊

I guess I just have to shell out the big bucks now 😉

PS :
. a little worried about the warranty in the US though 😞

. anybody has tried netfront on the older communicators ? Was it faster/better than the regular Opera ? any news of it for the newer communicators ?

I'm also in the US and just bought a 9300 last week from TigerDirect... the best price anywhere and had it shipped overnight. I've had the chance to get pretty familiar with it and I'm very, very impressed with it. It's a well built, solid, amazing device. I'm planning to post my more detailed impressions whenI have a bit more time. But, I'm quite happy I bought it. I don't find the speed a problem at all, as others have said, leave the apps open and switching back to them is nearly instantaneous. Some Word docs have been a bit slow, going through a conversion, but acceptable to me. Oh, and I'm running the device on T-Mobile USA and it works great. It even detected the T-Mobile SIM properly and auto-configured the APN's (T-Mobile Internet, T-Zones and MMS). Only had to change one thing on the T-Mobile Internet connection: changed from internet2 to internet3. Simple.

- Jim

Raven is spot on regarding how differently the OS interacts with the hardware. Thus because it is 'leaner' & less bloatware, it doesn't need as much Horse Power to give similar results for standard usage.

However, this may not be true when it comes to processor intensive realtime apps like games. Which is a shame..... (Even business men need to wind down on the train & blow up Aliens 😊 )

Look at how unfortunately weak the Golf game is at rendering....it's hardly 25fps...... & the Graphics cetainly shouldn't be breaking the bank. Yes it is clunky & slow, to the point that 8-16bit 80's games were more racey!!!

A point to back this up though is that if you goto the thread that Raven kindly posted which showed detailed descriptions of ALL the processors in the Range that are in the 9300/9500.
You will discover that Nokia chose to use the WEAKEST & Least powerful processor of the bunch available. You will also discover that Nokia are UNDER-Clocking it, compared to what it CAN run at.

Now this should only really 'p*ss off people who wanted their 9300/9500 to be games consoles. But the worring thing is that these phones may not be up to the job of doing things media-wise, that SHOULD be standard spec & not asking too much to do.
Like Playing Movies full screen with stereo sound & 15-25fps. These are supposed to be multi-media phones. If they can't make use of their high-res screens to render video fully & properly, then that IS CRAP!!! - But I have to test.

FatHammer - Please bring out your Wipeout clone for these phones, & lets see how it performs. (It worked well on series 60 phones running at only 104Mhz.)

So yes, it is efficient, buy also yes, it is weak compared to what COULD have been used!.

For doing what it does, these phones are superb. But the Jury is out on Gaming & multi-media. Lets hope game developers & multi-media renderers can prove this wrong.... Then we'll all be happy.

xoio

I think the mere fact that I am currently testing a Sega Megadrive/Genesis emulator for the 9500/9300 is proof enough that the processor is not "weak". 😊

and who is faster:Nokia 9300 or 9500

pierro78 wrote:I am in the US and they don't have the 9300 in shops there yet 😞

Just want to echo Jim Sparkman, I am using the 9500 in the US on TMobil and it works like a champ. The only app that is a little slow is the web, and I'm willing to wait the 10 or 15 seconds for the page to pull up so I can get everything I want everywhere I am -- without hauling a six or seven pound laptop around with me. For me it really is the perfect marriage of a phone and a pda. But Nokia won't upgrade the firmware or support the phone, so if you really need/want the support you might want to wait.

when i say slow i mean compared to windows ppc
sorry should have said it before

and no i dont support windows and a big supporter of symbian but i admit that its noticably faster

jimmy they have the same proceesor

Raven wrote:I think the mere fact that I am currently testing a Sega Megadrive/Genesis emulator for the 9500/9300 is proof enough that the processor is not "weak". 😊

A megadrive emulator? Cool...how far is it from release? I can't wait!

I dunno. I got the first alpha for testing only two days ago. It needs some small bug fixing and other alterations before it can be publicly released. The games run really well though. Playing Sonic never gets old, it's still a blast! 😊

Raven wrote:I dunno. I got the first alpha for testing only two days ago. It needs some small bug fixing and other alterations before it can be publicly released. The games run really well though. Playing Sonic never gets old, it's still a blast! 😊

Fantastic. Who's doing it? Is there anyway I can keep up to date with the progress, or will you let us know? 😉

Yes, of course. I'll make a news post on the front page when it's ready.

definetly something i need for my 9500
cant wait raven

Thanks guys for your help.
I have just received my 9300 and did a little web browsing (T-Mobile in the US) and I didn't feel any exagerated slowness so far ... very pleased with the device 😊 ... back to work now ...

Hi there pierro78

I also got my 9300 over the week-end. You mentioned on one of your earlier posts that you wanted it to be able to retrieve your gmail on-line - I'm also a gmail user but find that I can't do this using the built in browser on the 9300 - I can go to the login page but when I log-in it keeps coming back to the login page.

Does anyone have any idea of a way around this?

I can get gmail accessible from the built-in pop3 client, but taht doesn't help me as every time I connect it collects ALL the mail on gmail - including stuff I've already archived. I like to use the web interface for gmail, even when I'm working on the PC as I love the usability.

I don't want to go back to using outlook.

Anyideas ANYONE on how to access and use the gmail website from a 9300??

Cheers

Mark

hey Mark, glad you got you 9300 too 😊

Just tried gmail again, what happens is quite strange :
I need to delete the cookies (?), then select "keep me logged in", then press 3 or 4 times "login" before being able to login 😞 ... apart from that the html interface of gmail is working fine 😉 ...

Another solution I tried with better success (allthough I like to be allways logged in in gmail) is the gmail-lite php script on my webserver option ...

I guess the second option is better as I would like to keep my cookies for my other applications (just need to log once and keep my gmail-lite window open by the way) but I will do some more tries again 😊

hope this helps 😊,
Pierre

PS : please keep me updated on your progresses on this matters as this interests me too 😊

Well this time I left opera. My connection was stopped.
I restarted Opera and could go straight to gmail official website ! (acces gmail without logging in, using my previous cookies ...) hope it'll be the default behaviour from now on 😊

Hi Pierro,

Very pleased with the 9300 apart from this problem. I don't seem to be getting anywhere.

I'm accessing www.gmail.com - my ISP is O2 (uk provider).

I've tried clearing the cache, history, and cookies and then loading the site. What happens is that the status line shows "downloading" but then very quickly goes to "complete" with a little green lock symbol next to the status.

I foudn if I press and re-press the "sign-in" button several times without letting it load I eventually get an indicationg that it is "redirecting" - but then it just hangs there - I presume by continually clicking the "sign-in" button I'd put it in some sort of loop.

I'd not heard of gmail-lite before. I tried it on another site and got in via that but it showed my inbox, and my allmail as both empty (they aren't)

I have access to a linux web server - how big a job is it to istall gmail-lite? I run coldfusion on the server so am reluctant to go to the hassle of installing PHP just for this app.

If all fails I'll have to go back to accessing my gmail mails via outlook/pop3 - then when I access from the 9300 it will only show messages I haven't already downloaded to outlook.

Don't want to do this really though as:-
a. I much prefer the interface in gmail and
b. I bought the 9300 because of the letterbox style screen which I thought would be ideal for checking gmail - I accessed my gmail account on my sony P900 no problem - the only difficulty was because its a portrait screen and not landscape

If you've got any ideas I'd love to hear them

Cheers

Mark

Hey Mark, that's really weird. I have no problem accessing gmail now. Did you select the "Remember me on this computer. " option on gmail login page ?
I also happened to see this "downloading" status line but then it disappears. I am on T-Mobile US with $5 T-Zones. Normally it only allows email but I have setup a proxy on port 110 on my linux box so that I can do web without paying the $20 Internet fee. BTW the connexion is kind of slow (35kbps in my office) because no Edge. And I was kind of stuck on this "downloading" status line during 30 seconds.

On my linux box the gmail-lite stuff was really easy to install. I have gmail-lite v7 stuff on my webserver and it's not completely up to date with gmail now, I have to update but it's not as critical as before as the gmail official site seems to work for me ...
Good luck
Pierre

PS : I also set my Maximum cache size to 6000 KB in opera

I think it works fine, it's a bit slow at startup, but once it gets the app openede, then it caches it, and it starts up pretty quick!

Hi there,

still not getting any joy. I've increased my cache size, cleared it out, wiped out cookies etc.

Can I just clarify which gmail website you are logging in to - I've been trying at www.gmail.com.

When I was trying it the other day it would say that the page was complete really quickly and there would be a green sort of lock symbol at the top of the web page. I'm trying it now and the green symbol isn't there and the page takes about 30 seconds where it says "downloading" before it goes to "complete" - and when it says "complete" it's still on the login page.

Cheers

Mark

set bookmark to gmail.google.com but I don't think that would make a difference ...

Finally got somewhere!!

I changed the website address to https://gmail.google.com and it went through OK.

It is slow as a very slow thing though but at least I'm through.

One other thing - when on gmail I realise I've only got the html browse support, but clicking on the archive link didn't archive the email - similarly for the "report spam" link

Can you other users use the site OK?

Cheers

Mark