iPhone 4 is Faster than 3GS and Slower than iPad in Early Benchmarks

012806 IMG 0500 245 012922 photo 245
iPhone 4 results on left, 3GS on right

Early benchmarks of the iPhone 4 show it to be 31% faster than the iPhone 3GS according to the Geekbench 2 app. Geek Bench has been a popular benchmarking utility on the Mac that has recently made the jump over to the iPhone. As always, benchmarks are a bit of an artificial gauge of performance, but can be useful in head to head comparisons.

The iPhone 4 is known to use the same Apple A4 processor that is also found in the iPad, but Apple has never revealed the processor speed of the iPhone 4. The iPad is known to have a 1GHz processor. We looked at a few benchmarking utilities to see if we could determine if the iPhone 4's A4 processor was the same speed as the iPad's. Unfortunately, the state of benchmarking on iOS seems a bit primitive, and is further complicated by the fact that iOS 4.0 does not run on the iPad. GeekBench, for example, only runs on iOS 4, so we can't compare it directly to the iPhone 4's results. A couple of other benchmarking tools available produced some inconsistent results, so we can't be completely confident in them, but it appears that the iPhone 4 is indeed faster than the iPhone 3GS but slower than the iPad.

BenchTest: 3GS: 2.298, iPhone 4: 2.514, iPad: 3.667 - This benchmark only showed a small increase in speed with the iPhone 4, but some of the results seemed strange. All the "seconds" in the iPhone 4 results were listed at 0.00, though a score was still generated. It's hard to say if the results are entirely accurate.

Checkup: 3GS, iPhone 4, iPad - This also showed the trend of iPad > iPhone 4 > iPhone 3GS, but running the benchmark multiple times could result in a large variance.

Related Forum: iPhone

Popular Stories

iOS 26

iOS 26.4 and iOS 27 Features Revealed in New Leak

Friday December 12, 2025 10:56 am PST by
Macworld's Filipe Espósito today revealed a handful of features that Apple is allegedly planning for iOS 26.4, iOS 27, and even iOS 28. The report said the features are referenced within the code for a leaked internal build of iOS 26 that is not meant to be seen by the public. However, it appears that Espósito and/or his sources managed to gain access to it, providing us with a sneak peek...
Apple Logo Top Half

Early iOS 26 Software Leak Uncovers Dozens of Upcoming Apple Features

Monday December 15, 2025 3:05 pm PST by
Software from an iPhone prototype running an early build of iOS 26 leaked last week, giving us a glimpse at future Apple devices and iOS features. We recapped device codenames in our prior article, and now we have a list of some of the most notable feature flags that were found in the software code. In some cases, it's obvious what the feature flags are referring to, while some are more...
apple beta 26 lineup

Apple Leak Confirms Work on Foldable iPhone, AirTag 2, and Dozens More Devices

Monday December 15, 2025 2:05 pm PST by
Last week, details about unreleased Apple devices and future iOS features were shared by Macworld. This week, we learned where the information came from, plus we have more findings from the leak. As it turns out, an Apple prototype device running an early build of iOS 26 was sold, and the person who bought it shared the software. The OS has a version number of 23A5234w, and the first...
Apple Foldable Thumb

Leak Reveals Foldable iPhone Details

Monday December 15, 2025 9:09 am PST by
The first foldable iPhone will feature a series of design and hardware firsts for Apple, according to details shared by the Weibo leaker known as Digital Chat Station. According to a new post, via machine translation, Apple is developing what the leaker describes as a "wide foldable" device, a term used to refer to a horizontally oriented, book-style foldable with a large internal display....
iOS 26

iOS 26.3 Beta 1 Features: What's New So Far

Monday December 15, 2025 4:23 pm PST by
Apple is testing iOS 26.3, the next version of iOS 26 that will launch around January. Since iOS 26.3's testing is happening over the holidays, it is a smaller update with fewer features than we've seen in prior betas. We've rounded up what's new so far, and we'll add to our list with subsequent betas if we come across any other features. Transfer to Android Apple is making it simpler...
iOS 26

Apple Releases iOS 26.2 With Alarms for Reminders, Lock Screen Changes, Enhanced Safety Alerts and More

Friday December 12, 2025 10:10 am PST by
Apple today released iOS 26.2, the second major update to the iOS 26 operating system that came out in September, iOS 26.2 comes a little over a month after iOS 26.1 launched. ‌iOS 26‌.2 is compatible with the ‌iPhone‌ 11 series and later, as well as the second-generation ‌iPhone‌ SE. The new software can be downloaded on eligible iPhones over-the-air by going to Settings >...
iOS 26

iOS 26.2 Coming Soon With These 8 New Features on Your iPhone

Thursday December 11, 2025 8:49 am PST by
Apple seeded the second iOS 26.2 Release Candidate to developers earlier this week, meaning the update will be released to the general public very soon. Apple confirmed iOS 26.2 would be released in December, but it did not provide a specific date. We expect the update to be released by early next week. iOS 26.2 includes a handful of new features and changes on the iPhone, such as a new...
airpods max 2024 colors

AirPods Max 2 Likely to Offer These 10 New Features

Monday December 15, 2025 7:41 am PST by
Apple released the AirPods Max on December 15, 2020, meaning the over-ear headphones launched five years ago today. While the AirPods Max were updated with a USB-C port and new color options last year, followed by support for lossless audio and ultra-low latency audio this year, the headphones lack some of the features that have been introduced for newer generations of the regular AirPods and the ...