Beware of downloading large files straight to memory cards, even over fast connections! It can take ages!

I've already pointed out in several of my FTP client-related articles (see for example this, this and this), transferring to/from a memory card from/to an FTP site can take much more time than to/from the main memory instead of the memory card. This is especially true with slow(er) and/or non-optimized cards. (Please read this article for tips on optimizing your memory cards.)

The case is similar with Pocket PC Web browsers downloading files from the Web. Now that Opera Beta is available and, therefore, there're three browsers out there with downloading capabilities, I've made some new bechmarks to compare the file download speed of these applications.

How come there're only three Web browsers for the Pocket PC with file download capabilities, you may ask. Yes, only three of them support file download; the other two don't. Thunderhawk (current, tested version: 2.1) has absolutely no download capabilities and the current version (0.012) of Minimo is (still) unable to download anything. This is why I've only tested NetFront, Opera and Pocket Internet Explorer (PIE for short) (the latter along with the three download-capable add-ons, EZDownload, ViTO Downloader and ftpxPBrowser. The two latter applications have been introduced and explained in the related article linked from the "Recommended reading" section and EZDownload here).

The benchmark results (with a highly optimized, really fast hi-end Ridata card; slower cards would have produced much slower results and bigger differences between them, as is clearly visible in the above-linked FTP benchmarks), measured with a 13,203,710-byte ZIP file downloaded via USB ActiveSync on a WM2003SE Pocket Loox 720 (and, in cases, an iPAQ 2210, just to test WM2003-compliance), no other tasks/no ActiveSync synchronization tasks running, committing a reset before each test:

Where to:Main memoryCF card
WM2003SE PIE0:462:26
WM2003SE PIE + ViTO1:06 (WM2003SE) / 1:05 (WM2003 iPAQ 2210)Under WM2003SE, couldn't test – the application starts auto-downloading, can't even redirect it to a storage card. Under WM2003, about 7 minutes.
WM2003SE PIE + ftpxPBrowser0:42 (if it works...) 0:50 (if it works...)
EZDownload 1.152:50; under WM2003, 1:404:43; under WM2003, 3:52
Opera beta0:493:44
NF 3.20:53In the iPAQ 2210, 1:12; under WM2003SE, have never managed to save files into non-RAM memory
NF 3.3 TP 1.030:501:59 (see screenshot)

I've also made some other benchmarks with Caiman (the file downloadable from this page; also see this blog entry) but, as it's a remote computer and, therefore, the throughput limitations and changes in the access speed between my PDA and it could have interfered in the results, I don't trust these results as much as those of downloading directly from the PC the test PPC is connected to. The results (no results for PIE – PIE is unable to download anything from the given site because of the bug explained here) are as follows:

Where to:Main memoryCF card
Opera beta0:53 (see screenshot)4:07
NF 3.21:37 (see screenshot
Seems to be unable to save to memcards under WM2003SE

NF 3.3 TP 1.031:032:36 (see screenshot)

As can be seen, ftpxPBrowser writing to memory cards is almost as fast as writing to RAM; NetFront (particularly version 3.2 on WM2003) being the second fatest. EZDownload is moderately fast (it's quite slow on WM2003SE devices, particularly at writing to RAM; on WM2003, the situation is a bit better but, as far as downloading to RAM is concerned, nowhere as good as the alternatives) but is (relatively) bug-free and is, therefore, highly recommended if its capabilities and auto-Referer generation (which may not suffice with some sites – see for example this blog entry on this) are sufficient for you.

Then follows PIE, then, Opera, and, finally, ViTO Downloader. The latter needs almost an order of magnitude more time for downloading than ftpxPBrowser!

Severe problems with ViTO Downloader and ftpxPBrowser

Note that ViTO Downloader is pretty buggy under WM2003SE: much as it has a working connection and it does download the file(s), it keeps displaying the "Cannot find established connection" message. You can, then, click Yes to get rid of it (only to be displayed some (dozens of) seconds later – it's really annoying! The files, however, do arrive.) In addition, it often stays at the starting screen (that is, you won't see anything about the downloading process) and has tons of other refresh-related bugs too. Fortunately, the most important thing, downloading the files, works – if you're not trying to download to a storage card. With WM2003, the situation is a bit better: much as ViTO still keeps displaying the above-mentioned dialog box, you can force it to download the files to storage cards. It's, however, really-really slow at that – even the second slowest application, the current beta of Opera, is about two times faster. Others (for example, Gerard) have also mentioned having similar problems with the ViTO application.

Unfortunately, downloading in ftpxPBrowser is pretty unreliable under both WM2003SE and WM2003. In a lot of cases, it only created a 0-byte file in the file system. When it, however, did work, then, it was blazingly fast – even at downloading to storage cards. It was as fast at that as at most of the alternatives at downloading to the main memory – quite a feat!

EZDownload, as has been already pointed out, is pretty reliable. In cases, particularly during downloading, it's likely to allocate all the system resources for itself and, therefore, the Pocket PC may become completely unresponsive. In cases like this, you only need to wait for the download to complete to be able to use your PDA again.

Verdict

If you have a really fast connection and you want to download your files as quickly as possible to your storage card, give a try to ftpxPBrowser. If it doesn't work (it just creates zero-byte files), check out NetFront (please note that version 3.2 may have problems with writing to non-RAM memory on WM2003SE devices) or stick to PIE (if the latter is able to download from the given site, that is – see this blog entry on this question). Opera is slightly slower but this may change in the future. EZDownload is a great and, what is even better, free alternative but isn't particularly fast and the Referer header auto-generation may not suffice with some Web sites with really strict referrer-checking. Finally, bugs and other problems aside, I can't really recommend ViTO Downloader for downloading to storage cards, not even under operating systems where it actually works, because of its really bad speed.

If the file to be downloaded would fit in your free RAM (by leaving 5-6 Mbytes free, just to be on the safe side) and your card is extremely slow (even after optimizations), then, you may choose to download the files to the RAM instead of the card and then, after having downloaded them, transfer them to the storage card with a local file copy, inside the PDA, preferably with Resco File Explorer or Total Commander because of their superior file copy speed, compared to the built-in File Explorer. Then, even with relatively smaller (5-20 Mbyte) files, you can still save a lot of time.

Recommended reading

In addition to the links above, I recommend the Bible of Pocket PC Web Browsers (alternatives: FL, iPAQ HQ, AximSite, PPC Magazine, BrightHand) for a detailed review of all the available Pocket PC Web browsers and everything related to accessing the Web on the Pocket PC.

Much as it's linked from the previous roundup, I still find it useful to provide links directly to my "Downloading files with PIE" article too (alternatives: PPCT, AximSite, PPC Magazine, FirstLoox, BrightHand).

Finally, this article on optimizing memory cards is a must for anyone experiencing intolerably slow downloads to memory cards.