The biggest difference is the OS and resolution of the screens. The iPhone has much less to process as its resolution is quite low, and therefore the CPU need only render a fraction of what it takes to render the OS actions on the Droid / N1. Thats also why the iPhone is so smooth. Bare bones OS with low resolution with decent hardware.
It's not an apples to apples comparison.
My Droid's processor runs at 600 mhz. :icon_ devil:
Yes the iphone 3ghas a 600mhz processor, so does the droid its just underclocked to 550mhz.
However....
Aside from memory specs, the OS makes a huge difference on these devices and 50mhz isnt enough to really make a substantial "bang".
iPhone's processor is faster of course. If the Droid has the same video processor as the Pre(I'm assuming it does, I believe thats part of the OMAP 3430 processor), then it's got only half the throughput of the iPhone video processor, so another way the iPhone is technically faster. Also, the iPhone is running at nearly half the resolution as the Droid, pushing a LOT less pixels, so it's naturally going to be faster from that regard as well
Aren't the iPhone, Droid, and Pre all running on the same processor?