Pocket­now has come up with some real world sce­nar­ios in order to test the sub­jec­tive speed of var­i­ous smart­phones. Rather than rely­ing on bench­marks and spec­sheets, they time how long it takes some­one already famil­iar with the phone’s user inter­face to do cer­tain com­mon tasks one might do with a smart­phone. These are recorded on video and posted to their site. Two of the results so far I think are par­tic­u­larly telling.

First, the results from the cur­rent hot­ness, the new HTC Diamond:

1. Open email, con­tacts and cal­en­dar: 8 seconds
2. Open Google Maps: 6 seconds
3. Open a previously-​saved web favorite: 15 seconds
4. Find and play music from a spe­cific artist: 23 seconds

Now, let’s look at the results of the same test for the Palm Treo 800w:

1. Open email, con­tacts and cal­en­dar: 2 seconds
2. Open Google Maps: 2 seconds
3. Open a previously-​saved web favorite: 5 seconds
4. Find and play music from a spe­cific artist: 8 seconds

So on aver­age, the “tired, stale” Treo 800w is over three times faster than the shiny HTC Dia­mond. Per­son­ally, I’d rather get stuff done than look good wait­ing to do it.