Working title: The BlackBerry on Acid, maaan.
There's been quite a bit of chatter about different browsers passing the acid3 test, and some who didn't. There are three tests in the Acid suite, all designed to demonstrate how well a browser handles specific standards.
Acid 1:
Developed in October 1998, focused mainly on CSS1. (Wikipedia)
Acid 2:
Released in April, 2005, primarily tests CSS 2 and HTML rendering. (Wikipedia)
Acid 3:
Released on March 3rd, 2008, the focus is on DOM Level 2, SVG, XML, data: URIs and JavaScript. (Wikipedia)
Browsing like it's 1998
I decided to put the newest BlackBerry Browser in my possession to the test - the Verizon 8130 (Pearl 2). Running OS v4.3.0.97 with Browser v4.3.0. This version of the OS was released on January 29th, 2008 and is the newest publicly available CDMA OS.
Let's toss it a softball - the Acid 1 test
Not shabby, here's what it should look like:
The Acid 2 Test
Everything starts to fall apart with Acid 2. Here's the reference image:
And here's how the BB browser renders it:
What is that? It looks nothing like the reference, if anything it reminds me of Clifford.
Acid 3
I'm not sure if this is even worth it, especially since the Acid 3 test focuses on more Web 2.0ish aspects of a page.
Even with JavaScript enabled, the BB immediately fails the test. Let's see how it handles the reference page.
Here's what it should look like:
What does this prove?
Nothing really. It's not going to drive me to buy an iPhone, but it doesn't allay my frustration with the piss-poor browser on the BlackBerry. I'll never be satisfied madly rolling the trackball in the Browser after seeing an iPhone user merrily flicking their way through a webpage.