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Using WebXPRT 4’s language options

Justin Greene
By Justin Greene
on November 26, 2024

Sohu, a major Chinese site, recently published a tech review discussing their first impressions from Intel Core Ultra 5 245K and Intel Core Ultra 9 285K white box testing. In the article, they included screenshots of the WebXPRT 4 test results they produced during their evaluation. The screenshots showed that the testers had enabled WebXPRT 4’s Simplified Chinese UI. They’re not the first to use this option, and it’s one we are glad worked for them.

Though WebXPRT’s language settings menu has proven to be a popular feature for many users around the world, some folks may not even know the option is there. In today’s blog, we’ll go over the basics of this simple but helpful testing option.

On WebXPRT’s Start screen, you 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 tests we see from China and Central Europe. We wanted to make testing a little easier for users who prefer those languages and we’re glad to see people using the options.

Changing languages in the WebXPRT UI is quick and easy. 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 will then change to the language you selected, and the in-test workload headers and end-of-test results screen will also appear in the language you selected.

Figures 1–3 below my sig show the “Change Language?” drop-down menu and how the Start screen appears when you select Simplified Chinese or German. It’s important to note that if you have a translation extension installed in your browser, it may override the WebXPRT UI by reverting the language back to your browser’s default. You can avoid this conflict by temporarily disabling the browser’s translation extension for the duration of WebXPRT testing.

We hope WebXPRT 4’s language options will help facilitate the testing process for many users around the world. If you’re a frequent WebXPRT user and would like to see us add support for another language, please contact us. And, of course, if you have any questions about WebXPRT 4 testing, please let us know!

Justin

Figure 1: A screenshot of the WebXPRT 4 Start screen showing the language options drop-down menu.
Figure 2: A screenshot of the WebXPRT 4 Start screen with a Simplified Chinese UI.
Figure 3: A screenshot of the WebXPRT 4 Start screen with a German UI.
Posted in benchmark, Benchmarking, BenchmarkXPRT, BenchmarkXPRT development community, browser performance, Browser-based benchmarks, Chinese, Cross-platform benchmarks, German, Performance benchmarking, Simplified Chinese, WebXPRT, WebXPRT 4, What makes a good benchmark? | Also tagged , , , , , , , , ,

Shop confidently this holiday season with the XPRTs!

Justin Greene
By Justin Greene
on November 14, 2024

The holiday shopping season is upon us, and trying to find the right tech gift for your friends or loved ones (or yourself!) can be a daunting task. If you’re considering new phones, tablets, Chromebooks, laptops, or desktops as gifts this year—and are unsure where to get reliable device information—the XPRTs can help!

The XPRTs provide industry-trusted and time-tested measures of a device’s performance that can help you cut through the fog of competing marketing claims. For example, instead of guessing whether the performance of a new gaming laptop justifies its price, you can use its WebXPRT performance score to see how it stacks up against both older models and competitors while tackling everyday tasks.

A great place to start looking for device scores is our XPRT results browser, which lets you access our database of more than 3,700 test results—across all the XPRT benchmarks and hundreds of devices—from over 155 sources, including major tech review publications around the world, OEMs, our own Principled Technologies (PT) testing, and independent submissions. For tips on how to use the XPRT results browser, check out this blog post.

Another way to view information in our results database is by using the WebXPRT 4 results viewer. The viewer provides an information-packed, interactive tool that we created to help people explore data from the set of almost 800 WebXPRT 4 results we’ve curated and published to date on our site. You’ll find detailed instructions in this blog post for how to use the WebXPRT 4 results viewer tool.

If you’re considering a popular device, it’s likely that a recent tech press review includes an XPRT score for it. To find those scores, go to your favorite tech review site and search for “XPRT,” or enter 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:

In addition to XPRT-related resources in the tech press, here at PT we frequently publish reports that evaluate the performance of hot new consumer devices, and many of those reports include WebXPRT scores. For example, check out the results from our extensive testing of a Dell Latitude 7450 AI PC or our in-depth evaluation of three new Lenovo ThinkPad and ThinkBook laptops.

The XPRTs can help you make better-informed and more confident tech purchases this holiday season. 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

Posted in Acer, Apple, ASUS, benchmark, Benchmark metrics, Benchmarking, BenchmarkXPRT, browser performance, Chromebooks, CrXPRT, Dell, Google, holiday shopping, HP, iPhone, Lenovo, PCs, Phones, Samsung, WebXPRT, WebXPRT 4 | Also tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Speaking of potential future WebXPRT workloads

Justin Greene
By Justin Greene
on October 31, 2024

In recent blog posts, we’ve discussed several types of potential future WebXPRT workloads—from an auxiliary AI-focused workload to a WebXPRT battery life test—and many of the factors that we would need to consider when developing those workloads. In today’s post, we’re discussing other types of workloads that we may consider for future WebXPRT versions. We’re also inviting you to send us your WebXPRT workload ideas!

Currently, the most promising web technology for future WebXPRT workloads is WebAssembly (Wasm). Wasm is a binary instruction format that works across all modern browsers, provides a sandboxed environment that operates at native speeds, and takes advantage of common hardware specs across platforms. Wasm’s capabilities offer web developers significant flexibility in running complex client applications within the browser.

We first made use of Wasm in WebXPRT 4’s Organize Album and Encrypt Notes workloads, but Wasm has the potential to support many more types of test scenarios. Here are just a few of the use-case categories that Wasm supports:

  • Gaming
  • Image and video editing
  • Video augmentation
  • CAD applications
  • Interactive learning portals
  • Language translation

Those categories and the possibilities they open for additional workloads are exciting! When thinking through possible new workload scenarios, it’s important to remember that workload proposals need to fit within a set of basic guidelines that uphold WebXPRT’s strengths as a benchmark. You can read about those guidelines in more detail in this blog post, but in short, new workloads ideally should

  • be relevant to real-life scenarios
  • have cross-platform support
  • clearly differentiate in their performance between different types of devices
  • produce consistent and easily replicated results

After testing with WebXPRT or reviewing the list of use cases that Wasm supports, have you considered a new workload or test scenario that you would like to see? If so, please let us know! Your ideas could end up playing a role in shaping the next version of WebXPRT!

Justin

Posted in battery life, benchmark, Benchmarking, BenchmarkXPRT, browser performance, Browser-based benchmarks, Collaborative benchmark development, Cross-platform benchmarks, Future of performance evaluation, image processing, Performance benchmarking, WebAssembly, WebXPRT, WebXPRT 4, What makes a good benchmark? | Also tagged , , , , , , , ,

Gain a deeper understanding of WebXPRT 4 with our results calculation white paper

Justin Greene
By Justin Greene
on October 3, 2024

More people around the world are using WebXPRT 4 now than ever before. It’s exciting to see that growth, which also means that many people are visiting our site and learning about the XPRTs for the first time. Because new visitors may not know how the XPRT family of benchmarks differs from other benchmarking efforts, we occasionally like to revisit the core values of our open development community here in the blog—and show how those values translate into more free resources for you.

One of our primary values is transparency in all our benchmark development and testing processes. We share information about our progress with XPRT users throughout the development process, and we invite people to contribute ideas and feedback along the way. We also publish both the source code of our benchmarks and detailed information about how they work, unlike benchmarks that use a “black box” model.

For WebXPRT 4 users who are interested in knowing more about the nuts and bolts of the benchmark, we offer several information-packed resources, including our focus for today, the WebXPRT 4 results calculation and confidence interval white paper. The white paper explains the WebXPRT 4 confidence interval, how it differs from typical benchmark variability, and the formulas the benchmark uses to calculate the individual workload scenario scores and overall score on the end-of-test results screen. The paper also provides an overview of the statistical methodology that WebXPRT uses to translate raw timings into scores.

In addition to the white paper’s discussion of the results calculation process, we’ve also provided a results calculation spreadsheet that shows the raw data from a sample test run and reproduces the calculations WebXPRT uses to generate both the workload scores and an overall score.

In potential future versions of WebXPRT, it’s likely that we’ll continue to use the same—or very similar—statistical methodologies and results calculation formulas that we’ve documented in the results calculation white paper and spreadsheet. That said, if you have suggestions for how we could improve those methods or formulas—either in part or in whole—please don’t hesitate to contact us. We’re interested in hearing your ideas!

The white paper is available on WebXPRT.com and on our XPRT white papers page. If you have any questions about the paper or spreadsheet, WebXPRT, or the XPRTs in general, please let us know.

Justin

Posted in benchmark, Benchmark metrics, Benchmarking, BenchmarkXPRT, BenchmarkXPRT development community, browser performance, Browser-based benchmarks, Collaborative benchmark development, Cross-platform benchmarks, Performance benchmarking, results, Source code, WebXPRT, WebXPRT 4, White papers | Also tagged , , , , , , , , , , ,

How to automate your WebXPRT 4 testing

Justin Greene
By Justin Greene
on August 22, 2024

We’re excited about the ongoing upward trend in the number of completed WebXPRT 4 runs that we’re seeing each month. OEM and tech press labs are responsible for a significant amount of that growth, and many of them use WebXPRT’s automation features to complete large blocks of hands-off testing at one time. We realize that many new WebXPRT users may be unfamiliar with the benchmark’s automation tools, so we decided to provide a quick guide to WebXPRT automation in today’s blog. Whether you’re testing one or 1,000 devices, the instructions below can help save you some time.

WebXPRT 4 allows users to run scripts in an automated fashion and control test execution by appending parameters and values to the WebXPRT URL. Three parameters are available:

  • test type
  • test scenarios
  • results

Below, you’ll find a description of those parameters and instructions for how you can use them to automate your test runs.

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

The test scenario parameter lets you specify which subtest workloads 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 subtest workload, use its code. To run multiple workloads, use the sum of their codes. For example, to run Stock options pricing (4) and Encrypt notes and OCR scan (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

The results format 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 https://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: https://principledtechnologies.com/benchmarkxprt/webxprt/2021/wx4_build_3_7_3/auto.php?testtype=1&tests=63&result=4

We hope WebXPRT 4’s 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

Posted in Automation, benchmark, Benchmark metrics, Benchmarking, browser performance, Browser-based benchmarks, Performance benchmarking, results, tech press, WebXPRT, WebXPRT 4 | Also tagged , , , , , , , , ,

Shopping for back-to-school tech? The XPRTs can help!

Justin Greene
By Justin Greene
on August 8, 2024

For many students, the first day of school is just around the corner, and it’s now time to shop for new tech devices that can help set them up for success in the coming year. The tech marketplace can be confusing, however, with so many brands, options, and competing claims to sort through.

Fortunately, the XPRTs are here to help!

Whether you’re shopping for a new phone, tablet, Chromebook, laptop, or desktop, the XPRTs can provide industry-trusted performance scores that can give you confidence that you’re making a smart purchasing decision.

The WebXPRT 4 results viewer is a good place to start looking for device scores. The viewer displays WebXPRT 4 scores from over 700 devices—including many of the latest releases—and we’re adding new scores all the time. To learn more about the viewer’s capabilities and how you can use it to compare devices, check out this blog post.

Another resource we offer is the XPRT results browser. The browser is the most efficient way to access the XPRT results database, which currently holds more than 3,700 test results from over 150 sources, including major tech review publications around the world, manufacturers, and independent testers. It offers a wealth of current and historical performance data across all the XPRT benchmarks and hundreds of devices. You can read more about how to use the results browser here.

Also, if you’re considering a popular device, there’s a good chance that a recent tech review includes an XPRT score for that device. There are two quick ways to find these reviews: You can either (1) search for “XPRT” on your preferred tech review site or (2) use a search engine and input the device name and XPRT name, such as “Dell XPS” and “WebXPRT.”

Here are a few recent tech reviews that use one of the XPRTs to evaluate a popular device:

Lastly, here at Principled Technologies, we frequently publish reports that evaluate the performance of hot new consumer devices, and many of those reports include WebXPRT scores. For example, check out our extensive testing of HP ZBook G10 mobile workstations or our detailed comparison of Lenovo ThinkPad, ThinkBook, and ThinkCentre devices to their Apple Mac counterparts.

The XPRTs can help anyone stuck in the back-to-school shopping blues make better-informed and more confident tech purchases. As this new school year begins, 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

Posted in Acer, Apple, ASUS, benchmark, Benchmark metrics, Benchmarking, BenchmarkXPRT, browser performance, Browser-based benchmarks, Chromebooks, Cross-platform benchmarks, CrXPRT, Dell, Education, Laptops, Lenovo, Macbook, PCs, Performance benchmarking, results, tech press, WebXPRT, WebXPRT 4 | Also tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Check out the other XPRTs:

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