t1=time.time(); x=[i*i for i in xrange(1000000)]; time.time()-t1
On my 2.4GHz Core 2 Duo iMac, this runs in 0.47 seconds. On my Nexus One (using the Python executable from Scripting Layer for Android), it takes around 3.8 seconds. So the N1 is around an eighth of the speed of the iMac (ignoring the C2D's second core), which is actually pretty impressive.
Keep in mind that the N1 has a 1 GHz CPU, so the OP was correct in that you can't do an apples to apples comparison when different architectures are at play.
