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Month: March 2016

Quarterly review

It’s been one of our busiest quarters ever! Here’s a quick review of what’s been happening:

The XPRTs were on the road a lot!

 
While I was at CES, I was lucky enough to be able to sit down and talk on-the-record with a couple of community members:

 
Many thanks to them for being so generous with their time and their insights.

We also gave folks a lot to look at:

 
That is a great start to the year, but we’re going to top it – Next week, we’ll kick off Q2 with one of our biggest announcements ever!

Eric

BenchmarkXPRT Development Community releases the “Exploring TouchXPRT 2016” white paper

Durham, NC, March 28 – The BenchmarkXPRT Development Community, administered by Principled Technologies (PT), is pleased to announce the release of the “Exploring TouchXPRT 2016” white paper. The white paper discusses the details of the TouchXPRT 2016 benchmark, including the development process, new features, descriptions of its component tests and workloads, and how the benchmark calculates individual workload and overall scores. The paper also shows how to submit test results and automate testing.

Interested parties can download the white paper at www.BenchmarkXPRT.com/whitepapers.

To learn more about TouchXPRT and download the benchmark, please visit TouchXPRT.com.

To learn more about and join the BenchmarkXPRT Development Community, go to www.BenchmarkXPRT.com.

About Principled Technologies, Inc.
Principled Technologies, Inc. is a leading provider of technology marketing and learning & development services.

Principled Technologies, Inc. is located in Durham, North Carolina, USA. For more information, please visit www.principledtechnologies.com.

Company Contact
Eric Hale
Principled Technologies, Inc.
1007 Slater Road, Suite #300
Durham, NC 27703

Focusing the spotlight

As you may have heard, the Samsung Galaxy S7 is the XPRT Weekly Tech Spotlight this week.  As we were testing it, we noticed that our WebXPRT scores were about 8 percent lower than those reported by AnandTech.

The folks at AnandTech do a good job on their reviews, so we wanted to understand the discrepancy in scores. The S7 comes in a couple of models, so we started by verifying that our model was the same as theirs. It was.

The next step was to check their configuration against ours, and this is where we found the difference. Both phones were running the same version of Android, but the S7 AnandTech tested used Chrome 48 while the S7 we tested came preloaded with Chrome 49. In our testing, we’ve noticed that upgrading from Chrome 48 to Chrome 49 has a noticeable performance impact on certain devices. On the Samsung Galaxy S6, the scores went down about 10 percent. In all cases we’ve seen, the decrease is driven largely by the Stock Option Pricing workload.

This isn’t the first time we’ve written about browser versions affecting results. WebXPRT is a browsing benchmark, and the browser has a legitimate impact on performance. When you’re comparing results, it’s always important to look at all the factors involved.

Justin

Last week in the XPRTs

We published the XPRT Weekly Tech Spotlight on the Samsung Galaxy S7.
We added two new BatteryXPRT ’14 results.
We added one new MobileXPRT ’15 result.
We added four new WebXPRT ’15 results.

XPRT Weekly Tech Spotlight Shines on the Samsung Galaxy S7

DURHAM, NC–(Marketwired – March 24, 2016) – Principled Technologies (PT) is pleased to announce that this week’s XPRT Weekly Tech Spotlight features one of 2016’s most anticipated phones, the Samsung Galaxy S7.

Each week, the XPRT Weekly Tech Spotlight highlights a different tech device and posts its PT-verified BenchmarkXPRT performance results and specs online, so buyers everywhere can have the facts they need to make smart buying decisions.

The US version of the Samsung Galaxy S7, released on March 11, combines a Qualcomm Snapdragon 820 processor, 4 GB of RAM, and an Adreno 530 GPU with a 5.1″ screen and 1440 x 2560 display resolution. BatteryXPRT for Android 2014, MobileXPRT 2015, and WebXPRT 2015 scores provide insight into the Galaxy S7’s performance and battery life during everyday tasks.

XPRT Weekly Tech Spotlight, which debuted February 16, makes it easier for consumers to shop for a new laptop, smartphone, tablet, or PC. Recent devices include the Apple iPad Pro, the Microsoft Surface Pro 4, and the Google Pixel C. See the full list of available devices on the XPRT Weekly Tech Spotlight page.

Vendors interested in having their devices featured in the XPRT Weekly Tech Spotlight should check out the vendor’s page for more details.

About Principled Technologies, Inc.

Principled Technologies, Inc. is a leading provider of technology marketing and learning & development services. It administers the BenchmarkXPRT Development Community.

Principled Technologies, Inc. is located in Durham, North Carolina, in NC’s Research Triangle Park region. For more information, please visit www.PrincipledTechnologies.com.

Company Contact
Eric Hale
Principled Technologies, Inc.
1007 Slater Road, Suite 300
Durham, NC 27703

Women develop new perspectives for the XPRTs

Last weekend, we had the great privilege of co-hosting the first XPRT Women Code-a-Thon with the Seattle chapter of ChickTech. We couldn’t be happier with the results!

Our goal was to bring together a group of women and invite them to develop ideas for new device workloads—workloads that we might include in future versions of MobileXPRT and WebXPRT. The 20 participants—some working individually, and others working as teams—not only met that goal, they did a great deal more.

On the coding front, the participants achieved an impressive amount of work in a very short time. Though we awarded only three prizes, everyone generated interesting and useful ideas. Our prizes went to the following people:

1st place: Viveret Steele, for a 3D-modeling workload

2nd place: Annmarie Aidoo, for a geolocation workload

3rd place: Molly Fallen and Alex Trimble, for an audio-enhancement workload

These four people went home with checks, but winning wasn’t what motivated anyone to participate. Everyone was excited about developing software and working with others. The social side of the event proved to be as meaningful as the technical. People talked, formed friendships and mentoring relationships, and discussed seeking other events like this one. Two people said the event changed their lives.

In the weeks ahead, we’ll be sharing some more information about the event. In the meantime, we’re proud to have been part of it.

Jennie Faries

Last week in the XPRTs

We published the XPRT Weekly Tech Spotlight on the Microsoft Surface 3.
We added two new CrXPRT ’15 results.
We added two new MobileXPRT ’13 results.
We added six new WebXPRT ’15 results.

The big weekend is almost here!

A few weeks ago, I talked about the XPRT Women Code-a-Thon. Well, all the work that we and our friends at ChickTech Seattle have done is about to pay off! On Saturday, March 12, dozens of women will go to the Sole Repair Shop in Seattle for two days of coding, good food, and networking opportunities.

The goal of each team at the code-a-thon is to create a new workload that might be included in a future version of WebXPRT or MobileXPRT. Judges will award prizes to the top three workloads: $2,500 for first place, $1,500 for second place, and $1,000 for third place. I can’t wait to see the winning workloads!

We’re very fortunate to have Kristin Toth Smith as the keynote speaker. She is an avid supporter of women in tech, current COO of Dolly, and former CEO of Code Fellows.

It should be a great time for all. If you or anyone you know can get to Seattle this weekend, registration is still open.

Eric

Last week in the XPRTs
We published the XPRT Weekly Tech Spotlight on the ASUS ZenFone 2.
We added one new BatteryXPRT ’14 result.
We added five new WebXPRT ’15 results.

Check out the other XPRTs:

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