Game runs faster on slower MIDP device (Nokia 6101 vs. N-Gage) what is going on?

I am running an MIDP1.0 game on an N-Gage and Nokia 6101. From the j2me benchmarks I have seen, the N-Gage should be about 3 times faster than the 6101. Yet the 6101 seems to run the game a little better. The 6101 is MIDP2.0 while the N-Gage is only 1.0… does this have anything to do with it?
Also, if you happen to have either of these devices, how many sprites are you able to get on screen and have q game run at a decent rate? More than 10 sprites and my game dips below 10 cycles (frames) per second.

Well the 6101 is a newer device and nokia did seem to add a lot of power to the newer phones.
f.i. compare the 7210 to the newest series40

The size is important :P, the screen size for nokia 6101 is 128x160 and NGage 176x208.
Also it depends what are u painting, at older phones is normal that with some sprites the
performance decreases so much, the same for tiled maps without backbuffer.

absolutely - The new 6280 (theoretically a series 40) is a beast of a phone, however the fillrate throughput to its QVGA (320x240) screen has a significant impact on performance.

It falls a little way short of the performance seen on the 6630, 6680 and related phones.

I hope the 6280 is a sign that Nokia intend to phase out the S60 Symbian handsets - the OS is just too flakey.

On a side note - a QVGA screen in a handset that is only fractionally larger than the K750!
Nokia have finally caught back up (and even surpassed!) the newest SonyEricsson’s.