Category: Google Chrome

Focusing the spotlight

on March 24, 2016

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.

Posted in AnandTech, Android, Android M, Benchmark metrics, Benchmarking, BenchmarkXPRT, BenchmarkXPRT development community, Google Chrome, WebXPRT, WebXPRT 2015 |

A couple of things

By Eric Hale

on April 2, 2015

We’ve heard about a couple of issues this week. The HDXPRT 2014 Convert Videos test uses the MediaEspresso application and requires hardware acceleration be configured. On some systems, this setting is not configuring automatically, which may result in lower scores. We’re working on a solution, but in the meantime there’s an easy workaround.

We’ve also found that some Chromebooks report extremely low battery use, as low as 0%, for the first couple iterations of the CrXPRT battery life test. This can cause CrXPRT to report results with a very wide confidence interval, with an interval greater than 15%. We’re looking at ways to detect and compensate for this. However, if you see results with a very wide confidence interval, we recommend that you use the rundown test.

In other news, we’ve been talking about Intel Developer Forum 2015 – Shenzhen for weeks, and the time is finally here! Bill and Justin get on the plane tomorrow. If you’d like to talk about the XPRTs, or any of PT’s other offerings, Bill and the team would be happy to meet with you!

Eric

Posted in Collaborative benchmark development, CrXPRT, Google Chrome, HDXPRT, IDF |

A guest blog from Wilson Cheng at Acer Inc.

By Wilson Cheng

on February 12, 2015

Two years ago, I got a job to evaluate cross-platform benchmarks for comparing Windows and Android.

Usually, Web-based benchmarks focus on only Java-script and HTML5 functionality. I found WebXPRT is easy to use and includes the tasks that you do every day. It reliably tests the user experience and gives a simple score for comparison. I suggested to our manager that we use it to evaluate our platform and he agreed.

Recently, Chromebooks have become very popular. Testing the battery life of Chromebooks has been difficult because you have needed to use the power_LoadTest image from the Chromium project or the test image from the Chrome OS Partners Web site to do power load testing. Without reimaging the system, you couldn’t test battery life. Because CrXPRT is designed to test battery life as well as performance on ChromeOS, this extra step is no longer needed. We can run CrXPRT without updating the test image, which is very useful in our battery life testing.

The advantage of XPRT benchmarks is that they are easy to use and give real-world results. The disadvantage is that they are not yet popular on review sites.

Posted in Android, BenchmarkXPRT, Chrome OS, Chromebooks, CrXPRT, Google Chrome, WebXPRT, What makes a good benchmark? |

An updated CrXPRT 2015 build is available

By Eric Hale

on February 10, 2015

Today we’re releasing a new build of CrXPRT 2015 (v1.0.2) in the Chrome Web Store. The updates included in this build correct the handling of outlier scores for individual workloads, check the duration of each battery-life test iteration, and introduce a check to ensure that the system is not plugged in during battery-life testing. The tests have not changed, and the method of calculating the overall score and battery-life score is the same, so the main scores are comparable with previous CrXPRT scores.

We published the update today in the Chrome Web Store as of 3:00 PM EST, but it may take some time for the update to appear on your system. You may have to manually approve the update notice when it appears on your system.

If you have any questions about the update or any other XPRT-related topic, feel free to contact us at BenchmarkXPRTsupport@principledtechnologies.com.

Posted in Battery life, Chrome OS, Chromebooks, CrXPRT, Google Chrome |

So easy a child can do it!

By Eric Hale

on January 15, 2015

Tomorrow we are releasing a new video featuring CrXPRT. This one is set in a school science fair, where “Ellie Smith” explains how she used CrXPRT to help her school decide which Chromebook to buy. We were lucky enough to get a thoroughly professional and charming young actress to play the role of Ellie. (I have a tiny cameo as the guy in the gray sport coat at the back of the room.)

Before we started shooting the video, we asked an actual 10-year-old to install and run CrXPRT. I hate to sound like an old commercial, but it really was so simple that a child could do it!

We also created a faux science report to go with the video. An adult—not a sixth-grader—wrote the report, but the results in it and in the video are real. (You can follow the links in the science report to see the real-world results online.)

When it goes live, you’ll find the video and the report on CrXPRT.com, as well as on YouTube and SlideShare. We hope you’ll enjoy seeing Ellie’s project!

Eric

Comment on this post in the forums

Posted in BenchmarkXPRT, Chrome OS, Chromebooks, CrXPRT, Google Chrome, Video, What makes a good benchmark? |

What do you think when you hear “Chromebook”?

By Justin Greene

on September 11, 2014

We’ve been thinking a lot about Chromebooks while doing all of our testing in preparation for the CrXPRT Community Preview. In both the models we’re testing and the ones announced in the press, we’ve seen just how much the Chromebook market is changing. Some folks even claim that Chromebook sales made up 35 percent of US commercial laptop sales in the first half of 2014. What’s even more interesting to us is the wide variety of Chromebooks on the market.

Choosing between Chromebooks these days is becoming more complicated than it used to be. There’s a greater range of hardware choices, and those choices can have a direct impact on performance and battery life. Some Chromebooks offer local storage up to 320 GB, touch screens, and 4G/LTE connectivity. Prices range widely, from $199 to $1,499. Even seemingly comparable systems can perform much differently when put to the test. For instance, we recently tested two Chromebooks separated by only $50 in price, but over 5 hours of estimated battery life!

Whether a consumer’s ultimate purchasing decision is based on price, specs, or a combination of factors, there are few things more valuable to buyers than reliable facts about performance and battery life. Benchmarking is ultimately about gaining useful data for decision making, and that’s why we’re excited about the value that CrXPRT will bring to the Chromebook discussion!

Justin

Comment on this post in the forums

Posted in Chrome OS, CrXPRT, Google Chrome, Performance of computing devices, What makes a good benchmark? |

Category: Google Chrome

Focusing the spotlight

A couple of things

A guest blog from Wilson Cheng at Acer Inc.

An updated CrXPRT 2015 build is available

So easy a child can do it!

What do you think when you hear “Chromebook”?

Check out the other XPRTs: