Author Archives: Justin Greene

Planning the next version of HDXPRT

on July 20, 2017

A few weeks ago, we wrote about the capabilities and benefits of HDXPRT. This week, we want to share some initial ideas for the next version of HDXPRT, and invite you to send us any comments or suggestions you may have.

The first step towards a new HDXPRT will be updating the benchmark’s workloads to increase their value in the years to come. Primarily, this will involve updating application content, such as photos and videos, to more contemporary file resolutions and sizes. We think 4K-related workloads will increase the benchmark’s relevance, but aren’t sure whether 4K playback tests are necessary. What do you think?

The next step will be to update versions of the real-world trial applications included in the benchmark, including Adobe Photoshop Elements, Apple iTunes, Audacity, CyberLink MediaEspresso, and HandBrake. Are there other any applications you feel would be a good addition to HDXPRT’s editing photos, editing music, or converting videos test scenarios?

We’re also planning to update the UI to improve the look and feel of the benchmark and simplify navigation and functionality.

Last but not least, we’ll work to fix known problems, such as the hardware acceleration settings issue in MediaEspresso, and eliminate the need for workarounds when running HDXPRT on the Windows 10 Creators Update.

Do you have feedback on these ideas or suggestions for applications or test scenarios that we should consider for HDXPRT? Are there existing features we should remove? Are there elements of the UI that you find especially useful or would like to see improved? Please let us know. We want to hear from you and make sure that HDXPRT continues to meet your needs.

Justin

Posted in 4K, BenchmarkXPRT, Collaborative benchmark development, Future of performance evaluation, HDXPRT, HDXPRT capabilities, HDXPRT development process, HDXPRT release cycle, Let us know your thoughts, Performance benchmarking, What makes a good benchmark?, Windows 10 |

XPRTs around the world

By Justin Greene

on July 13, 2017

This week, we posted an updated version of our “XPRTs around the world” infographic. From time to time, we like to give readers a broader view of the impact that the XPRTs are having around the world, and the infographic shows just how far and wide the XPRTs’ reach has grown.

Here are some numbers from the latest update:

The XPRTs have been mentioned more than 7,800 times on over 2,500 unique sites.
Those mentions include more than 6,800 articles and reviews.
Those mentions originated in over 400 cities located in 58 countries on six continents. If you’re a tech reviewer based in Antarctica, we’re counting on you to help us make it a clean sweep!
The BenchmarkXPRT Development Community now includes 203 members from 73 companies and organizations around the world.

In addition to the reach numbers, we’re excited that the XPRTs have now delivered more than 250,000 real-world results!

If you’re familiar with the run counter on WebXPRT.com, you may have noticed that the WebXPRT run tally is rising quickly. Starting with the original release of WebXPRT in early 2013, it took more than three and a half years for the combined run tally of WebXPRT 2013 and WebXPRT 2015 to reach 100,000. In the nine months since that happened, users have added 60,000 runs. The pace is picking up significantly!

We’re grateful for everyone who’s helped us get this far. Here’s to another quarter-million runs and downloads!

Justin

Posted in BenchmarkXPRT, BenchmarkXPRT development community, WebXPRT, WebXPRT 2013, WebXPRT 2015 |

HDXPRT: see how your Windows PC handles media tasks

By Justin Greene

on June 22, 2017

Over the last several weeks, we reminded readers of the capabilities and benefits of TouchXPRT, CrXPRT, and BatteryXPRT. This week, we’d like to highlight HDXPRT. HDXPRT, which stands for High Definition Experience & Performance Ratings Test, was the first benchmark published by the HDXPRT Development Community, which later became the BenchmarkXPRT Development Community. HDXPRT evaluates the performance of Windows devices while handling real-world media tasks such as photo editing, video conversion, and music editing, all while using real commercial applications, including Photoshop and iTunes. HDXPRT presents results that are relevant and easy to understand.

We originally distributed HDXPRT on installation DVDs, but HDXPRT 2014, the latest version, is available for download from HDXPRT.com. HDXPRT 2014 is for systems running Windows 8.1 and later. The benchmark takes about 10 minutes to install, and a run takes less than two hours.

HDXPRT is a useful tool for anyone who wants to evaluate the real-world, content-creation capabilities of a Windows PC. To see test results from a variety of systems, go to HDXPRT.com and click View Results, where you’ll find scores from many different Windows devices.

If you’d like to run HDXPRT:

Simply download HDXPRT from HDXPRT.com. The HDXPRT user manual provides information on minimum system requirements, as well as step-by-step instructions for how to configure your system and kick off a test. Testers running HDXPRT on Windows 10 Creators Update builds should consult the tech support note posted on HDXPRT.com.

If you’d like to dig into the details:

Check out the Exploring HDXPRT 2014 white paper. In it, we discuss the benchmark’s three test scenarios in detail and show how we calculate the results.

If you’d like to dig even deeper, the HDXPRT source code is available to members of the BenchmarkXPRT Development Community, so consider joining today. Membership is free for members of any company or organization with an interest in benchmarks, and there are no obligations after joining.

If you haven’t used HDXPRT before, give it a shot and let us know what you think!

On another note, Bill will be attending Mobile World Congress in Shanghai next week. Let us know if you’d like to meet up and discuss the XPRTs or how to get your device in the XPRT Spotlight.

Justin

Posted in BenchmarkXPRT development community, HDXPRT, HDXPRT 2012, HDXPRT 2014, HDXPRT capabilities, HDXPRT development process, HDXPRT source code, Let us know your thoughts, Performance benchmarking, Source code, White papers, Windows 10, Windows 8.1, XPRT Weekly Tech Spotlight |

Notes from the lab

By Justin Greene

on June 15, 2017

This week’s XPRT Weekly Tech Spotlight featured the Alcatel A30 Android phone. We chose the A30, an Amazon exclusive, because it’s a budget phone running Android 7.0 (Nougat) right out of the box. That may be an appealing combination for consumers, but running a newer OS on inexpensive hardware such as what’s found in the A30 can cause issues for app developers, and the XPRTs are no exception.

Spotlight fans may have noticed that we didn’t post a MobileXPRT 2015 or BatteryXPRT 2014 score for the A30. In both cases, the benchmark did not produce an overall score because of a problem that occurs during the Create Slideshow workload. The issue deals with text relocation and significant changes in the Android development environment.

As of Android 5.0, on 64-bit devices, the OS doesn’t allow native code executables to perform text relocation. Instead, it is necessary to compile the executables using position-independent code (PIC) flags. This is how we compiled the current version of MobileXPRT, and it’s why we updated BatteryXPRT earlier this year to maintain compatibility with the most recent versions of Android.

However, the same approach doesn’t work for SoCs built with older 32-bit ARMv7-A architectures, such as the A30’s Qualcomm Snapdragon 210, so testers may encounter this issue on other devices with low-end hardware.

Testers who run into this problem can still use MobileXPRT 2015 to generate individual workload scores for the Apply Photo Effects, Create Photo Collages, Encrypt Personal Content, and Detect Faces workloads. Also, BatteryXPRT will produce an estimated battery life for the device, but since it won’t produce a performance score, we ask that testers use those numbers for informational purposes and not publication.

If you have any questions or have encountered additional issues, please let us know!

Justin

Posted in Android, Android N, Battery life, BatteryXPRT 2014 for Android, Benchmarking computing devices, MobileXPRT, MobileXPRT 2015 |

Learning something new every day

By Justin Greene

on June 1, 2017

We’re constantly learning and thinking about how the XPRTs can help people evaluate the tech that will soon be a part of daily life. It’s why we started work on a tool to evaluate machine learning capabilities, and it’s why we developed CrXPRT in response to Chromebooks’ growing share of the education sector.

The learning process often involves a lot of tinkering in the lab, and we recently began experimenting with Neverware’s CloudReady OS. CloudReady is an operating system based on the open-source Chromium OS. Unlike Chrome OS, which can run on only Chromebooks, CloudReady can run on many types of systems, including older Windows and OS X machines. The idea is that individuals and organizations can breathe new life into aging hardware by incorporating it into a larger pool of devices managed through a Google Admin Console.

We were curious to see if it worked as advertised, and if it would run CrXPRT 2015. Installing CloudReady on an old Dell Latitude E6430 was easy enough, and we then installed CrXPRT from the Chrome Web Store. Performance tests ran without a hitch. Battery life tests would kick off but not complete, which was not a big surprise because the battery life calls involved were developed specifically for Chrome OS.

So, what role can CrXPRT play with CloudReady, and what are the limitations? CloudReady has a lot in common with Chrome OS, but there are some key differences. One way we see the CrXPRT performance test being useful is for comparing CloudReady devices. Say that an organization was considering adopting CloudReady on certain legacy systems but not on others; CrXPRT performance scores would provide insight into which devices performed better with CloudReady. While you could use CrXPRT to compare those devices to Chromebooks, the differences between the operating systems are significant enough that we cannot guarantee the comparison would be a fair one.

Have you spent any time working with CloudReady, or are there other interesting new technologies you’d like us to investigate? Let us know!

Justin

Posted in Battery life, Benchmark metrics, Chrome OS, Chromebooks, CrXPRT, Performance benchmarking |

BatteryXPRT: A quick and reliable way to estimate Android battery life

By Justin Greene

on May 25, 2017

In the last few weeks, we reintroduced readers to the capabilities and benefits of TouchXPRT and CrXPRT. This week, we’d like to reintroduce BatteryXPRT 2014 for Android, an app that evaluates the battery life and performance of Android devices.

When purchasing a phone or tablet, it’s good to know how long the battery will last on a typical day and how often you’ll need to charge it. Before BatteryXPRT, you had to rely on a manufacturer’s estimate or full rundown tests that perform tasks that don’t resemble the types of things we do with our phones and tablets every day.

We developed BatteryXPRT to estimate battery life reliably in just over five hours, so testers can complete a full evaluation in one work day or while sleeping. You can configure it to run while the device is connected to a network or in Airplane mode. The test also produces a performance score by running workloads that represent common everyday tasks.

BatteryXPRT is easy to install and run, and is a great resource for anyone who wants to evaluate how well an Android device will meet their needs. If you’d like to see test results from a variety of Android devices, go to BatteryXPRT.com and click View Results, where you’ll find scores from many different Android devices.

If you’d like to run BatteryXPRT:

Simply download BatteryXPRT from the Google Play store or BatteryXPRT.com. The BatteryXPRT installation instructions and user manual provide step-by-step instructions for how to configure your device and kick off a test. We designed BatteryXPRT 2014 for Android to be compatible with a wide variety of Android devices, but because there are so many devices on the market, it is inevitable that users occasionally run into problems. In the Tips, tricks, and known issues document, we provide troubleshooting suggestions for issues we encountered during development testing.

If you’d like to learn more:

We offer a full online BatteryXPRT training course that covers almost every aspect of the benchmark. You can view the sections in order or jump to the parts that interest you. We guarantee that you’ll learn something new!

If you’d like to dig into the details:

Check out the Exploring BatteryXPRT 2014 for Android white paper. In it, we discuss the app’s development and structure. We also describe the component tests; explain the differences between the test’s Airplane, Wi-Fi, and Cellular modes; and detail the statistical processes we use to calculate expected battery life.

If you’d like to dig even deeper, the BatteryXPRT source code is available to members of the BenchmarkXPRT Development Community, so consider joining today. Membership is free for members of any company or organization with an interest in benchmarks, and there are no obligations after joining.

If you haven’t used BatteryXPRT before, try it out and let us know what you think!

Justin

Posted in Android, Battery life, BatteryXPRT 2014 for Android, Benchmark metrics, Benchmarking, BenchmarkXPRT development community, CrXPRT, TouchXPRT, What makes a good benchmark? |

Author Archives: Justin Greene

Planning the next version of HDXPRT

XPRTs around the world

HDXPRT: see how your Windows PC handles media tasks

If you’d like to run HDXPRT:

If you’d like to dig into the details:

Notes from the lab

Learning something new every day

BatteryXPRT: A quick and reliable way to estimate Android battery life

If you’d like to run BatteryXPRT:

If you’d like to learn more:

If you’d like to dig into the details:

Check out the other XPRTs: