Windows Phone 7 browser aces the HTML5 drawing test

Mangoes are apparently good for mobile web browsers – the Internet Explorer 9 that comes with the Mango update for Windows Phone 7 beat Mobile Safari and the Android Browser at a hardware-accelerated graphics rendering test, demonstrated at MIX11.

The test at hand is HTML5 Speed Reading – it uses a Canvas element to draw an animation. The Canvas element gives JavaScript a lot of flexibility when it comes to drawing and is often used in HTML5 games (ones that often claim to be as good as Flash but with no actual Flash required).

The test offers a framerate counter, which reveals a startling difference. The test was run simultaneously on an HTC Trophy, Google Nexus S and an iPhone 4 (actually, the iPhone had a head start).

Here’s the video of the demo from Microsoft’s MIX11 conference:The Windows Phone 7 browser goes at a breezy 20fps, the Android Browser manages 11fps or so, while Mobile Safari chugs along at just 2fps. Again, this test measures Canvas drawing performance, rather than general browsing speed, or JavaScript performance and such.

But still, it’s a very impressive demo that shows Microsoft has put a lot of work into the Mango update. There’s also quite a bit of other new functionality coming to Windows Phone 7 with the Mango update.