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Category: results

Looking back on 2022 with the XPRTs

Around the beginning of each new year, we like to take the opportunity to look back and summarize the XPRT highlights from the previous year. Readers of our newsletter are familiar with the stats and updates we include each month, but for our blog readers who don’t receive the newsletter, we’ve compiled some highlights from 2022 below.

Benchmarks
In the past year, we released WebXPRT 4, and the CloudXPRT v1.2 update package.

XPRTs in the media
Journalists, advertisers, and analysts referenced the XPRTs thousands of times in 2022. It’s always rewarding to know that the XPRTs have proven to be useful and reliable assessment tools for technology publications around the world. Media sites that used the XPRTs in 2022 include AnandTech, Android Authority, Benchlife.info (China), BodNara (South Korea), ComputerBase (Germany), DISKIDEE (Belgium), eTeknix, Expert Reviews, Gadgets 360, Hardware.info (The Netherlands), Hardware Zone (Singapore), ITC.ua (Ukraine), ITmedia (Japan), Itndaily.ru (Russia), Notebookcheck, PCMag, PC-Welt (Germany), PCWorld, TechPowerUp, Tom’s Guide, TweakTown, and ZOL.com (China).

Downloads and confirmed runs
In 2022, we had more than 10,800 benchmark downloads and 183,300 confirmed runs. Users have run our most popular benchmark, WebXPRT, more than 1,135,500 times since its debut in 2013! WebXPRT continues to be a go-to, industry-standard performance benchmark for OEM labs, vendors, and leading tech press outlets around the globe.

XPRT media, tools, and publications
Part of our mission with the XPRTs is to produce tools and materials that help testers better understand the ins and outs of benchmarking in general and the XPRTs in particular. To help achieve this goal, we published the following in 2022:

We’re thankful for everyone who used the XPRTs, joined the community, and sent questions and suggestions throughout 2022. We’re excited to see what’s in store for the XPRTs in 2023!

Justin

How to automate WebXPRT 4 testing

As the number of WebXPRT runs continues to grow, we realize many new WebXPRT users may be unfamiliar with all the features and capabilities of the benchmark. To help inform users about features that might facilitate their testing, we’ve decided to highlight a few WebXPRT features here in the blog. A few weeks ago, we discussed the multiple language options available in the WebXPRT 4 UI. This week, we look at WebXPRT 4 test automation.

WebXPRT 4 allows users to run scripts in an automated fashion. You can control the execution of WebXPRT 4 by appending parameters and values to the WebXPRT URL. Three parameters are available: testtype, tests, and result. Below, you’ll find a description of those parameters and instructions for utilizing automation.

Test type

The WebXPRT automation framework accounts for two test types: (1) the six core workloads and (2) any experimental workloads we might add in future builds. There are currently no experimental tests in WebXPRT 4, so always set the test type variable to 1.

  • Core tests: 1

Test scenario

This parameter lets you specify which tests to run by using the following codes:

  • Photo enhancement: 1
  • Organize album using AI: 2
  • Stock option pricing: 4
  • Encrypt notes and OCR scan using WASM: 8
  • Sales graphs: 16
  • Online homework: 32

To run a single individual test, use its code. To run multiple tests, use the sum of their codes. For example, to run Stocks (4) and Notes (8), use the sum of 12. To run all core tests, use 63, the sum of all the individual test codes (1 + 2 + 4 + 8 + 16 + 32 = 63).

Results format

This parameter lets you select the format of the results:

  • Display the result as an HTML table: 1
  • Display the result as XML: 2
  • Display the result as CSV: 3
  • Download the result as CSV: 4

To use the automation feature, start with the URL http://www.principledtechnologies.com/benchmarkxprt/webxprt/2021/wx4_build_3_7_3, append a question mark (?), and add the parameters and values separated by ampersands (&). For example, to run all the core tests and download the results, you would use the following URL: http://principledtechnologies.com/benchmarkxprt/webxprt/2021/wx4_build_3_7_3/auto.php?testtype=1&tests=63&result=4

We hope the WebXPRT automation features will make testing easier for you. If you have any questions about WebXPRT or the automation process, please feel free to ask!

Justin

How to use the WebXPRT language options

In September, the Chinese tech review site KoolCenter published a review of the ASUS Mini PC PN51 that included a screenshot of the device’s WebXPRT 4 test result screen. The screenshot showed that the testers had enabled the WebXPRT Simplified Chinese UI. Users can choose from three language options in the WebXPRT 4 UI: Simplified Chinese, German, and English. We included Simplified Chinese and German because of the large number of test runs we see from China and Central Europe. We wanted to make testing a little easier for users who prefer those languages, and are glad to see people using the feature.

Changing languages in the UI is very straightforward. Locate the Change Language? prompt under the WebXPRT 4 logo at the top of the Start screen, and click or tap the arrow beside it. After the drop-down menu appears, select the language you want. The language of the start screen changes to the language you selected, and the in-test workload headers and the results screen also appear in your chosen language.

The screenshots below my sig show the Change Language? drop-down menu, and how the Start screen appears when you select Simplified Chinese or German. Be aware that if you have a translation extension installed in your browser, the extension may override the WebXPRT UI by reverting the language back to the default of English. You can avoid this conflict by temporarily disabling the translation extension for the duration of WebXPRT testing.

If you have any questions about WebXPRT’s language options, please let us know!

Justin

The XPRTs can help with your holiday shopping!

The holiday shopping season is fast approaching, and choosing the right tech gift can often be a daunting task. If you’re considering phones, tablets, Chromebooks, or laptops as gifts, and are unsure where to get reliable device information, the XPRTs can help!

The XPRTs provide objective, reliable measures of a device’s performance that can help to cut through the marketing noise. For example, instead of guessing whether the performance of a new laptop lives up to its billing, you can use its WebXPRT performance score to see how it stacks up against the competition on everyday tasks.

A good place to start looking for device scores is our XPRT results browser, which lets you access our database of more than 3,200 test results from over 165 sources, including major tech review publications around the world, OEMs, and independent testers. You can find a wealth of current and historical performance data across all the XPRT benchmarks and hundreds of devices. Learn how to use the results browser here.

If you’re considering a popular device, chances are good that a recent tech review includes an XPRT score for it. You can find these reviews by going to your favorite tech review site and searching for “XPRT,” or entering the name of the device and the appropriate XPRT (e.g., “iPhone” and “WebXPRT”) in a search engine. Here are a few recent tech reviews that used the XPRTs to evaluate popular devices:

The XPRTs can help consumers make better-informed and more confident tech purchases this holiday season, and we hope you’ll find the data you need on our site or in an XPRT-related tech review. If you have any questions about the XPRTs, XPRT scores, or the results database please feel free to ask!

Justin

We have a new XPRTs around the world infographic!

If you’ve followed the XPRT blog for a while, you know that we occasionally update the community on some of the reach metrics we track by publishing a new version of the “XPRTs around the world” infographic. The metrics we track include completed test runs, benchmark downloads, and mentions of the XPRTs in advertisements, articles, and tech reviews. Gathering this information gives us insight into how many people are using the XPRT tools, and updating the infographic helps readers and community members see the impact the XPRTs are having around the world.

This week, we published a new infographic, which includes the following highlights:

  • The XPRTs have been mentioned more than 19,500 times on over 4,000 unique sites.
  • Those mentions include more than 12,300 articles and reviews.
  • Users have tested gear with the XPRTs in over 924 cities located in 81 countries on six continents. New cities of note include Dhaka, Bangladesh; Zagreb, Croatia; Hamilton, New Zealand; and Medina, Saudi Arabia.

In addition to the reach metrics we mention above, the XPRTs have now delivered more than 1,330,000 real-world results! We’re grateful for everyone who’s helped us get this far. Your participation is vital to our achieving our goal: to provide benchmark tools that are reliable, relevant, and easy to use.

Justin

The WebXPRT 4 results calculation white paper is now available

Last week, we published the Exploring WebXPRT 4 white paper. The paper describes the design and structure of WebXPRT 4, including detailed information about the benchmark’s harness, HTML5 and WebAssembly capability checks, and the structure of the performance test workloads. This week, to help WebXPRT 4 testers understand how the benchmark calculates results, we’ve published the WebXPRT 4 results calculation and confidence interval white paper.

The white paper explains the WebXPRT 4 confidence interval and how it differs from typical benchmark variability, and the formulas the benchmark uses to calculate the individual workload scenario scores and overall score. The paper also provides an overview of the statistical techniques WebXPRT uses to translate raw timings into scores.

To supplement the white paper’s discussion of the results calculation process, we’ve also published a results calculation spreadsheet that shows the raw data from a sample test run and reproduces the calculations WebXPRT uses to produce workload scores and the overall score.

The paper is available on WebXPRT.com and on our XPRT white papers page. If you have any questions about the WebXPRT results calculation process, please let us know!

Justin

Check out the other XPRTs:

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