tile vs sprite - which is better?

If I want a static black bar to strech across the top of the layout, would it be better to create a single 1024x60 image and past it in as a sprite, or create a 1x60 image and create a tiled background and let it strech across?

Both will look the same.

Im guessing the tile version will adversly affect performance on slow devices such as the iphone3? This would outway the benifit of a smaller file to download. Or perhaps the sprite, even if not being animated, reduces performance?

By performance I mean FPS and responsivness of GUI.

Any thoughts?

If you want just a completely black bar, why not make a 1x1 pixel sprite and stretch it?

On a well-implemented hardware accelerated renderer they are probably identical. I think Optimisation: don't waste your time applies.

Well, in terms of VRAM, using a 1x1 tiled BG in favor of a 1024x60 sprite would be wise.