SlashGear separately compares the browser performance of the Lumia 800 against the iPhone 4S and the Galaxy S II. The performance tests aren’t exactly scientific as they did not take place in a controlled environment. The two tests are, then, anecdotal and we suggest you do not jump to a conclusion based on them.

Unsurprisingly, thanks to its tight hardware and software optimization, the iPhone 4S was found to be the fastest in the browser comparison. Mobile Safari appears to be making full use of the dual-core Apple A5 chip which, by the way, has been proved to be the fastest in its class.

Apple apparently uses a couple of clever tricks such as filling URL bar before loading the page to make the user think that the browser is rendering faster. The spinning circle in the iOS status bar is what you should actually look at to ascertain if the web page has loaded or not. Still, despite all the apparent trickery, the iPhone 4S did load pages the quickest!

The Galaxy S II, which is powered by a dual-core 1.2GHz chip, came in at a respectable 2nd place in the test. The biggest advantage it has over the Lumia 800 and iPhone 4S is that it comes with support for Flash so you can, as Adobe would say, browse the “full web” with it.

Despite having one less core and half the RAM, the Nokia Lumia 800 held up surprisingly well against giants like the iPhone 4S and Galaxy S II in the comparison tests. It was certainly the slowest of the bunch, but only by a second or two.

SlashGear found that all page navigation was “smooth across the board” once the page loaded up. As we mentioned before, browser speed doesn’t just depend on rendering, but also on network speed/load, so please do not consider this to be a conclusive test.

The Nokia Lumia 800 was announced yesterday at Nokia World. To learn more about it, check out our post on its features, specifications and availability.

You can follow us on Twitter or join our Facebook page to keep yourself updated on all the latest from Nokia, Google, and Apple

Focusing on the flagship Lumina 800 handset, Nokia is making some very interesting choices to distinguish itself from the likes of Apple and the iPhone. It’s nice to see some attractive handsets out there that may end up offering the iPhone some competition…

The Lumina 800 sports a 1.4GHz Snapdragon Qualcomm processor, gorgeous 3.7-inch AMOLED display, 8-megapixel camera, 16 GB of storage, and the Windows Phone 7 ‘Mango’ OS. The Lumina 710 is a cheaper version with toned-down specs, like 8 GB of storage and a 5-megapixel camera.

Nokia Maps and Nokia Drive serve as replacements for Microsoft’s default Bing services in the Windows Phone OS, and they seem to work pretty well. Multiple sites have been praising the Lumina today, and it looks like Nokia definitely has something compelling.

Nokia’s handsets have always been known for their superb build quality, and the Symbian OS has been the major negative for customers as of late. Now that Nokia is adopting the more relevant Windows Phone OS, the handset maker may stand a chance.

It’s worth noting that Microsoft still doesn’t have half of the app developer support that Apple wields with the App Store, so handsets like the Lumina series will be fighting an uphill battle until there are more apps available on the Windows Phone Marketplace.

As is usually the case with Nokia, potential US customers are left in the cold for the time being. The Lumina 800 and 710 will be available in many European countries and Asia in the coming months, but the company is currently unclear as to when the Lumina will be available in the US.

Images and video via This is my next