Android Device Speedometer Benchmark Scores Are Doubled by Google Chrome

Google revealed that it was able to double Chrome’s score on Android smartphones in Speedometer 2.1, a browser benchmark. Chrome’s optimization for more expensive devices and cutting-edge Arm architectures, such as the Snapdragon 8 Elite, allowed for the accomplishment. According to Google, these enhancements will be apparent in day-to-day operations, such as when loading a Google Doc on the Pixel Tablet.

Because of its close compatibility with Google’s mobile operating system, Google Chrome is among the best-suited browsers for Android smartphones. Chrome recently doubled its score on the widely used Speedometer benchmark test, and the search engine giant has revealed that Chrome will now perform even quicker on Android smartphones. Google claims that enhanced rendering engines, better software builds, and its collaboration with chipmakers like Qualcomm to optimize the browser for high-end devices are the reasons behind Chrome’s significantly better performance.

It’s not just you if Google Chrome on Android feels speedier these days, particularly on more expensive Android phones and tablets. Google claims that since Chrome version M112 was launched last year, Chrome for Android has seen notable improvements in both scores and overall speed in the widely used browser benchmark Speedometer 2.1. With the release of Speedometer 3.0, Google claims in a blog post that gadgets equipped with Qualcomm’s most recent Snapdragon 8 Elite chipset are smashing the new benchmark.

The best Google Chrome updates that doubled Android device performance, Google describes how it doubled its browser’s benchmark score on Speedometer in a post on the Chromium blog. The business claims that rather than concentrating on a single build of Chrome that was made to work on low-cost smartphones, it began optimizing builds of the browser for high-end devices with version 113, which was released in April 2023.

Google also claims to have achieved more than half of the performance gains shown on the benchmark tests thanks to its “separate higher-performance build targeting premium Android devices.” A browser will be able to load websites and other content more quickly and smoothly if it receives higher scores in benchmark tests. 

Google has noticed that Speedometer ratings on many Android devices have more than doubled from version M122 to the current version M129. This is because of build optimizations, enhancements to the renderer and JavaScript engines, and system-on-a-chip (SoC) and OS version optimization.

Only ARM64 devices can use the optimized version of Google Chrome, which is better suited to run on devices with more RAM and storage. Consequently, it contains speedier C++ code rather than code that is optimized for a smartphone’s storage capacity.

It took “more than 50 percent longer than it does today” to load a Google Docs page on a Pixel Tablet running Chrome version 112 in 2023, according to the company.

Google collaborated closely with Qualcomm and other hardware makers to better optimize the performance for high-end devices. Consequently, thread scheduling and power consumption were also optimized, and a device running Chrome on a Snapdragon 8 Elite chip showed a 60–80% increase in Speedometer 3.0 scores when compared to a device running Chrome on a Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 chip.

When Chrome is used with the newest silicon, like Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 8 Elite processor—the first to use specially designed Oryon cores for mobile devices—you can observe these gains. The performance differences between the identical browser running on a Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 and a Snapdragon 8 Elite are striking in the Speedometer 3.0 benchmark that Google released below.

The business claims that Chrome version 120, which enhanced the layout and optimization of Chrome code, introduced profile-guided optimization (PGO) in December 2023. In the meantime, Google claims that its V8 JavaScript and Blink rendering engines, which power Chrome, have been optimized to provide quicker performance.

When Google released Chrome M113, a new version of Chrome for Android, the enhancements got started. For the first time, high-end devices could use a different version of Chrome that optimized their performance. Google claims that it was able to improve its optimization for flagship CPUs by developing distinct builds for high- and low-performance devices. For instance, it leveraged the effectiveness of Arm’s 64-bit instruction set to create the latest, high-performance edition of Chrome for Arm64.

Google anticipates that these enhancements will also result in Chrome being used on expensive Android smartphones and tablets on a daily basis. Chrome M129 on the Pixel Tablet loaded a Google Doc webpage 50% faster than the previous M112 version on the same device in the Google test below.

Google claims to have adjusted Chrome’s builds and engines to make sure the browser wasn’t stifling the performance of the new Snapdragon 8 Elite CPU, which in particular produced a 60% to 80% improvement in Speedometer 3.0.

People will have more opportunities to test out the quicker version of Chrome when additional phones with the Snapdragon 8 Elite chipset are introduced, such as the Samsung Galaxy S25 series. Recent Chrome versions will probably result in a substantial speed gain, even if your device is older.