For several months I suspected that my N800 is just faster than my N810. I just assumed that since the N800 was flashed recently it is just 'cleaner' hence runs faster.

Yesterday flashed both the N810 and N800 to the latest Diablo firmware.

I installed Tear and it is true - the N800 renders webpages significantly faster.

A few examples:

• techcrunch.com: N800 finishes rendering 5 seconds before the N810
• nyt.com: N800 finishes 6 seconds faster

Both are not using any plugings, so just html, images javascript.

Does it make sense? The N800 is really faster?
(both running from the internal memory, no dual boot...)

On a side note - looking for advice on which device to keep. I am seriously considering getting a netbook or iPad. Keeping both N800 and N810 is just too much

They're supposed to be equally fast, with the same OS. After all, the hardware is the same. Except for the SD card handling. You're not running with swap enabled, by any chance?

I will post a video of the two if I find the time tonight.
I am running swap enabled, why?

Because swap will use flash I/O which may differ in speed between the two. On the N800 you would usually enable swap on the internal SD card (mmc2), which could be of any type (class 2, class 4, class 6..) and thus speed. On the N810 I assume swap would be enabled on the internal 2GB flash? Or is that on a card as well? In any case, the write speeds may wary. Now, if you have enough applications or just one memory-hungry application running, then you would be swapping and then your devices would feel the speed of whatever media you're swapping to.