Everyone’s been wondering if there is any real difference between Adobe’s Flash Mobile 10.1 and Flash Lite besides how different sites identify the plugins. Engadget‘s been kind enough to demonstrate the performance of both technologies side-by-side in a showdown video.

Taking the Nexus One and the HTC Desire – which are both similarly specced – we can draw up a somewhat accurate comparison of the two. The video does show that the Nexus One played identical flash content superiorly over the Desire, but we must not forget that Android 2.2 is a much speedier experience out of the box.

As for revisiting this scenario when other Flash Lite Snapdragon-based Sense phones are upgraded to Froyo in the future? We’d love to anticipate a fairer head-to-head at that time, but HTC could very well decide to ditch Flash Lite in Sense for Froyo-onward’s native Flash Mobile 10.1 (in their more capable devices, anyway).