The desktop version of Chrome is one of my favorite browsers. Considering that I’m entrenched in Google with Google+, Gmail, Google Music, and my Android phone running 2.3.4 (Gingerbread represent!); it’s nice to have everything connected.
On Android devices, depending on the hardware maker, the stock browser is bad. Meaning almost worthless to view anything. My 4G LTE connection doesn’t even help. Third party browsers like Dolphin Browser HD are great alternatives, but even they have loading issues.
Now Google has Chrome in Beta, I’m very interested if the speed of the desktop program can be matched on Android 4.0.
Even in beta, Chrome is almost perfect.
As I said in my review, Chrome is fast. Much faster than any other browser that I’ve used before. Sites load incredibly fast. Text heavy sites are no problem and even new sites that are primarily images have only a small delay.
I looked at services and sites that I regularly use to find out if Chrome could access everything that I normally browsed when I used desktop Chrome.
I use Google Music over iTunes, so tried to load Google Music through the browser instead of the app. I found that while the mobile version loads Google Music, it will not play a song.
I attempted through Wi-Fi and the 4G LTE connection of the Galaxy Nexus and there was no success. That was disappointing, but the Google Music app is actually better organized than browsing through the mobile Google Music site.
I also tested YouTube by searching for videos through the mobile and desktop versions. I found that Chrome doesn’t support Flash. Even though Chrome will happily attempt to load a YouTube video on a web site, it will freeze the browser.
The desktop version of YouTube also has this problem, bypassed by using the m.Youtube.com mobile site. Mobile YouTube also works like the dedicated app, but discovering the lack of in-page video was disappointing.
Browsing sites is the greatest experience on Chrome. Connecting to your Google account and synced with desktop Chrome makes an almost seamless experience. Chrome has a “hidden” menu that contains the core of your Google presence.
You can find a lot more options for search, apps, and notifications. The seamless nature of the menus bypass the dedicated apps for Google. Almost all Google mobile apps can be accessed through Chrome.
Looking at a selection of pages, I found that Chrome has no problem loading sites. The only issue that I saw were with plugins built into sites. Those sites took a little longer to load, but not much more than a few seconds. Chrome is impressive in how well it loads both mobile and desktop version of sites. There isn’t much of a difference in the speed and the browser scales the content well.
The only disappointment of Chrome is that it only supports Android 4.0 (Ice Cream Sandwich). I wonder why Google decided to only support their newest operating system when many are still stuck in 2.2 (Froyo) and 2.3 (Gingerbread).
Chrome in beta is faster than any other browser available on Android. Google is infamous for leaving things in beta, so hopefully Chrome’s updates will include greater operating system support.
