I decided to buy the nWeb Browser for Zodiac [nwebreview, nweb, nwebcache] from the Tapwave site. I also own Xiino [xiino3.4, xiinodead, xiinooffline], so as a follow-up to my earlier Palm Browser overview, I did some usage comparisons between the two.
First, I compared the speed of both browsers by connecting to the internet via a Bluetooth-enabled Linux box, then loading http://www.mikeyp.com. Here are the results in seconds:
| Browser | Application Load | Page Load with No Images | Page Load with "Low Quality" Images | Page Load with "Best Quality" Images |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Xiino | 1 | 5 | 6 | 19 |
| nWeb | 4 | 7 | 14 | 21 |
Xiino is a faster web browser. This is mostly noticeable during the app startup time, where nWeb feels really lethargic. Xiino also bests nWeb when using "low quality" images, but this isn't whole story. Xiino delivers low-res gray scale images in "low quality" mode, whereas nWeb's "low quality" images look almost as nice as Xiino's "best quality". In fact, with the limited image count on mikeyp.com, I couldn't tell the difference between nWeb's "low quality" and nWeb's "best quality".
Second, I compared basic HTML rendering abilities, again with mikeyp.com. Both browsers rendered pages in a very readable form, however, nWeb tends to preserve more of the page's original layout and formatting better than Xiino. Each has a different approach to displaying large tables on the small screen, both of which are usable, but neither is great. Fortunately, they both display small tables with ease.
| Browser | HTML Colors | CSS Colors | HTML Header Font Sizes | Table Formatting | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| nWeb | Yes | Yes | Yes | Allows horizontal scrolling to preserve layout | |
| Xiino | Yes | No | Yes | Preserves layout by wrapping text mid-word where necessary | |
Finally, I compared some subjective daily usage points. In daily usage, both browsers do the job well, with Xiino having the performance advantage, and nWeb having the major advantage of Landscape + Fonts4OS5.
| Browser | Scrolling Speed | Landscape Support | Landscape with Fonts4OS5 | Memory Usage with 1MB Cache | Price |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| nWeb | Slow | Yes | Yes | 3141KB | $34.95 |
| Xiino | Fast | Yes | No | 2441KB | $30.00 |
Conclusion: Based on my limited comparisons, it is hard to choose between the two. Both browsers do a great job of bringing the web to the Zodiac. If it weren't for the problems with Fonts4OS5 (an absolute must-have add-on utility for Palm browsing), I would recommend Xiino. For me, performance beats features every time. That said, I'm very happy with nWeb, and by turning images off, you can get a very practical, and speedy, web browsing experience.
