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Category: Benchmarking

Back to the source

Last week, we released MobileXPRT CP1.1.This week, we released the source code for MobileXPRT CP1.1. You can download it here (login required). The procedure for building it is the same as for the previous CP. As we discussed in Kick the tires. Look under the hood, it’s easy to set up the environment and all the necessary software is free.

We believe that one of the most important things we can do is make the source code available. We believe that increasing the transparency of the benchmarking process and stimulating the participation of industry players and the public in the definition, development, understanding, and auditing of the benchmarks will lead to better benchmarks.

You may be thinking “Then why not open source the benchmark?” The short answer is that we need to make sure that the results from any version of our benchmarks are ones you can trust. You can watch Bill discuss this in BenchmarkXPRT: It’s not a benchmark.

We believe that the community model—which gives you total visibility into the benchmark, allows you to run your own experiments and contribute to future versions of the benchmark, and still protects the integrity of the results—strikes the right balance.

If you’re not a member, please consider joining. It’s easy.

If you are a member, check out the code and tell us how it can be better!

Eric

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The truth hurts

The truth hurts sometimes. Bill loves to mention how long he, Mark, and I have been involved in benchmark software. I am, of course, grateful to him for reminding me of just how old we all are.

Another truth that hurts is that sometimes things don’t happen when you want them to. Case in point: The preview of Windows 8.1 is supposed to be available on June 26. We released TouchXPRT, which is based on Windows 8, to the public in February.

The problem of timing is not limited to benchmarks. All software has timing issues. While the advance descriptions of the changes in Windows 8.1 don’t mention anything that should break the benchmark, we need to see what, if any, effect, the new version of the OS may have on the benchmark and its results.

As soon as the preview is available, we’ll start testing with it. As soon as we know whether TouchXPRT runs on Windows 8.1 and gives results comparable to Windows 8, we will let you know. We would appreciate help from any of you in trying out TouchXPRT with Windows 8.1. Let us know what you find out!

Eric

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Chaos and opportunity

With both E3 and Apple’s WWDC happening this week, there’s been a lot of news. There’s also been a lot of hyperbolic commentary. I am not about to get into the arguments about the PS4 vs. the Xbox One or iOS 7 vs. Android.

It was Tim Cook’s presentation at WWDC that really got my attention. It’s unusual in an executive presentation to focus so much attention on a particular competitor, but Android was clearly on his mind. At one point, he focused harsh attention on fragmentation in the Android market, calling it “terrible” for developers. You can see the video here, at about 74 minutes.

As we saw in the 90s, chaos can breed innovation. At that time, the paradigm was that Macs always worked, but if you wanted the most advanced hardware, you should get a PC. I remember the editors at MacWorld, who deeply, truly loved the Mac, lusting over the (by the standards of the time) small, light, cheap notebooks PC users could get.

That being said, we understand the challenges of developing in the Android market. As I said in It’s finally here!, the Android ecosystem is sufficiently diverse that we know the benchmark will encounter configurations we’ve not seen before. If you have any problems with the MobileXPRT CP, please let us know at benchmarkxprtsupport@principledtechnologies.com. We want the benchmark to be the best it can be.

Eric

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The MobileXPRT 2013 community preview is available!

If you’re a member, you can download it here. If you’re not a member, join and see what the excitement’s about.

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Presentation XPRT

A few weeks ago, the Mobile PC Extended Battery Life Working Group (EBL WG) asked me to give a presentation about the BenchmarkXPRT benchmarks during one of their meetings. The group started a little over 10 years ago and is an industry organization focusing on achieving all-day battery life in mobile PC platforms.

There was a catch, of course. The meeting was this week, in Taipei. Luckily, we were able to grant the request without racking up any frequent flier miles—thanks to the wonders of technology, I was able to give the presentation remotely.

Taipei is 12 hours ahead of us here on the East Coast, so I made arrangements to give the presentation last night at 9:30 pm, making it 9:30 am the next day there—the first thing on the agenda for today. (Oh, the vagaries of time zones!)

During the one-hour session we talked about HDXPRT, TouchXPRT, WebXPRT and MobileXPRT (which, for the moment, is how we internally refer to the XPRT formerly known as PhoneXPRT). And of course, we discussed the BenchmarkXPRT Development Community. It went well, and we had some great questions from the group.

It went so well, in fact, that I’d love to do it again. I like talking about the development community and the XPRTs, and would welcome the chance to present to other groups. If you are interested or know an organization that is, you can email us at benchmarkxprtsupport@principledtechnologies.com.

Bill

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A happy coincidence

I love new gadgets and even the promise of new ones. Samsung just announced the specs for their upcoming Galaxy Tab 3. Initial reactions to the specs have been somewhat muted to say the least. Basically, they’ve looked at this as only an incremental improvement to the current model. The early rumors of a larger screen and bigger improvements, which turned out to be false, surely contributed to the disappointed reactions.

That being said, some sites claim that the performance of the Galaxy Tab 3 is much higher than the Galaxy Tab 2, particularly regarding graphics. We look forward to verifying these claims ourselves.

Coincidentally, this week we have been playing with an early version of PhoneXPRT (or whatever we end up calling it). So far, things are looking good. We ran it on several devices, including a Samsung Galaxy Tab 2. Like all the XPRT benchmarks, it uses real- world scenarios, which we think result in more useful and accurate results. We’ll talk more about the scenarios in the next few weeks.

It’s a very exciting time in the Android phone and tablet market. I can’t wait to try out subsequent versions of the new benchmark on the latest and greatest Android devices!

Bill

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