See Where Your Android Stands With Geekbench 3

Android devices have a way of accumulating on us these days. New phones and tablets seem to launch at such a frenetic pace that it is hard to keep up with the latest and greatest. Worse, we all end up owning multiple devices, though it is sometime difficult to guage which is the best and fastest â€" I now own two phones and three tablets, though one of the phones is older and I actually am not even sure where in the house it currently resides. Still it is listed when I visit the Google Play store.

Now there is a way to test each device, providing it is running one of the newer builds of Android â€" 4.0 or later in this case. This is a flat-out, nerdy benchmark test â€" perhaps why it is appropriately named  Geekbench. In this case, it is version three of the app, which builds on what was previously released.

To get started, you will obviously need to head to the Play store and grab a copy, though it will lighten your wallet by $0.99, which is certainly not a tremendous amount to pay. In fact, for the return of this in-depth information, it may be considered a small price to shell out.

The latest build contains 15 new tests and re-written versions of 12 of the tests contained within the last build of the application. New introductions include encryption, image processing, signal processing, and physics simulation.

Once launched, the app is much faster than you may assume, knocking through 100 separate tests in around three minutes, and that was on a Galaxy Nexus â€" not the newest smartphone on the market.

When completed, the app scores your device â€" in the case of my Galaxy Nexus, it rated a 109 out of a possible 200, though other devices have potential scores that can run higher than 200. For instance, I ran a test of the new Nexus 7 and it scored a 580 out 1485 possible points.

It provides basic information on the device, such as build and OS, though you can find these things in Settings as well. Scroll further down and you will discover considerably more, including bar graphs that show performance in each and every category you could possibly wish for.

Conclusion

While this is not free, the cheap cost makes it well worth the investment, especially given that, once purchased, the app can be installed on all of your compatible devices. So far I have only checked the Galaxy Nexus and the new Nexus 7, but plan to also run a test on the Asus MeMO tablet as well. Google TV is obviously not compatible.