Qualcomm wants to benchmark your Android browser

Qulacomm has coded an app for Android users interested in effectively gauging web browsing speeds on their smartphones.

Dubbed Vellamo, the benchmarking tool measures JavaScript performance, rendering and network speeds.

As Phandroid’s Chris Chavez points out, the app does not seem to favor phones equipped with Qualcomm processors. 

“At first, I was a little skeptical of this benchmark thinking since Qualcomm made this benchmark, it would be obviously be tailored to phones equipped with their processors,” Chavez wrote. 



“But, I was surprised to see not all Qualcomm devices came out on top.”

The free app is probably worth downloading, simply because web browsing on mobile devices has certainly come a long way since the days of clumsy feature phones.

Some websites out there – such as the ones streaming video and heavily laden with ads – are obviously quite intensive in terms of horsepower requirements.

While browsing on a smartphone isn’t yet as comfortable as surfing on say a desktop, laptop or tablet, handsets are becoming increasingly powerful as the next generation of ARM chips begin to tape out.

A high Vellamo benchmark rank is likely a good indication that your current or future Android phone is well ahead of the pack – bringing us closer to the day when handsets are deployed as full-fledged “PCs” via an external display and Bluetooth keyboard/mouse.