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Mobile World Congress 2023: Infrastructure led the way

When the tech industry is at its best, a virtuous cycle of capabilities and use cases chases its own tail to produce ever-better tech for us all. Faster CPUs drive new usage models, which in turn emerge and swamp the CPUs, which then must get faster. Better screens make us want higher-quality video, which requires more bandwidth to deliver and causes us to desire even better displays. Apps connect us in more ways, but those connections require more bandwidth, which leads to new apps that can take advantage of those faster connections. And on and on.

Put a finger on the cycle at any given moment, and you’ll see that while all the elements are in motion, some are the stars of the moment. To keep the cycle going, it’s crucial for these areas to improve the most. At Mobile World Congress 2023 (#MWC23), that distinction belonged to infrastructure. Yes, some new mobile phones were on display, Lenovo showed off new ThinkPads, and other mobile devices were in abundance, but as I walked the eight huge halls, I couldn’t help but notice the heavy emphasis on infrastructure.

5G, for example, is real now—but it’s far from everywhere. Telecom providers have to figure out how to profitably build out the networks necessary to support it. The whole industry must solve the problems of delivering 5G at huge scale, handle the traffic increases it will bring, switch and route the data, and ultimately make sure the end devices can take full advantage of that data. Management and security remain vital whenever data is flying around, so those softer pieces of infrastructure also matter greatly.

Inevitably and always, to know if we as an industry are meeting these challenges, we must measure performance—both in the raw speed sense and in the broader sense of the word. Are we seeing the full bandwidth we expect? Are devices handling the data properly and at speed? Where’s the bottleneck now? Are we delivering on the schedules we promised? Questions such as these are key concerns in every tech cycle—and some of them are exactly what the XPRTs focus on.

As we improve our infrastructure, we hope to see the benefits at a personal level. When you’re using a device—whether it’s a smart watch, a mobile phone, or a laptop—you need it to do its job well, respond to you quickly, and show you what you want when you want it. When your device makes you wait, it can be helpful to know if the bandwidth feeding data to the device is the bottleneck or if the device simply can’t keep up with the flow of data it’s receiving. The XPRTs can help you figure out what’s going on, and they will continue to be useful and important as the tech cycle spins on. If history is our guide, the infrastructure focus of MWC23 will lead to greater capabilities that require even better devices down the line. We look forward to testing them.

A new BatteryXPRT 2014 for Android build is available

In last week’s blog, we discussed why we now consider full BatteryXPRT rundown tests to be the most accurate and why we’re releasing a new build (v110) that increases the default BatteryXPRT test from 5.25 hours (seven iterations) to 45 hours (60 iterations). We also built v110 using Android Studio SDK 27, in order to bring BatteryXPRT up to date with current Android standards. Today, we’ve posted the new build on BatteryXPRT.com and in the Google Play Store, and we’ve also published an updated user manual. Please contact us if you have any questions about BatteryXPRT testing.

Justin

Notes from the lab: choosing a calibration system for MobileXPRT 3

Last week, we shared some details about what to expect in MobileXPRT 3. This week, we want to provide some insight into one part of the MobileXPRT development process, choosing a calibration system.

First, some background. For each of the benchmarks in the XPRT family, we select a calibration system using criteria we’ll explain below. This system serves as a reference point, and we use it to calculate scores that will help users understand a single benchmark result. The calibration system for MobileXPRT 2015 is the Motorola DROID RAZR M. We structured our calculation process so that the mean performance score from repeated MobileXPRT 2015 runs on that device is 100. A device that completes the same workloads 20 percent faster than the DROID RAZR M would have a performance score of 120, and one that performs the test 20 percent more slowly would have a score of 80. (You can find a more in-depth explanation of MobileXPRT score calculations in the Exploring MobileXPRT 2015 white paper.)

When selecting a calibration device, we are looking for a relevant reference point in today’s market. The device should be neither too slow to handle modern workloads nor so fast that it outscores most devices on the market. It should represent a level of performance that is close to what the majority of consumers experience, and one that will continue to be relevant for some time. This approach helps to build context for the meaning of the benchmark’s overall score. Without that context, testers can’t tell whether a score is fast or slow just by looking at the raw number. When compared to a well-known standard such as the calibration device, however, the score has more informative value.

To determine a suitable calibration device for MobileXPRT 3, we started by researching the most popular Android phones by market share around the world. It soon became clear that in many major markets, the Samsung Galaxy S8 ranked first or second, or at least appeared in the top five. As last year’s first Samsung flagship, the S8 is no longer on the cutting edge, but it has specs that many current mid-range phones are deploying, and the hardware should remain relevant for a couple of years.

For all of these reasons, we made the Samsung Galaxy S8 the calibration device for MobileXPRT 3. The model in our lab has a Qualcomm Snapdragon 835 SoC, 4 GB of RAM, and runs Android 7.0 (Nougat). We think it has the balance we’re looking for.

If you have any questions or concerns about MobileXPRT 3, calibration devices, or score calculations, please let us know. We look forward to sharing more information about MobileXPRT 3 as we get closer to the community preview.

Justin

AI and the next MobileXPRT

As we mentioned a few weeks ago, we’re in the early planning stages for the next version of MobileXPRT—MobileXPRT 3. We’re always looking for ways to make XPRT benchmark workloads more relevant to everyday users, and a new version of MobileXPRT provides a great opportunity to incorporate emerging tech such as AI into our apps. AI is everywhere and is beginning to play a huge role in our everyday lives through smarter-than-ever phones, virtual assistants, and smart homes. The challenge for us is to identify representative mobile AI workloads that have the necessary characteristics to work well in a benchmark setting. For MobileXPRT, we’re researching AI workloads that have the following characteristics:

  • They work offline, not in the cloud.
  • They don’t require additional training prior to use.
  • They support common use cases such as image processing, optical character recognition (OCR), etc.


We’re researching the possibility of using Google’s Mobile Vision library, but there may be other options or concerns that we’re not aware of. If you have tips for places we should look, or ideas for workloads or APIs we haven’t mentioned, please let us know. We’ll keep the community informed as we narrow down our options.

Justin

Planning the next version of MobileXPRT

We’re in the early planning stages for the next version of MobileXPRT, and invite you to send us any suggestions you may have. What do you like or not like about MobileXPRT? What features would you like to see in a new version?

When we begin work on a new version of any XPRT, one of the first steps we take is to assess the benchmark’s workloads to determine whether they will provide value during the years ahead. This step almost always involves updating test content such as photos and videos to more contemporary file resolutions and sizes, and it can also involve removing workloads or adding completely new scenarios. MobileXPRT currently includes five performance scenarios (Apply Photo Effects, Create Photo Collages, Create Slideshow, Encrypt Personal Content, and Detect Faces to Organize Photos). Should we stick with these five or investigate other use cases? What do you think?

As we did with WebXPRT 3 and the upcoming HDXPRT 4, we’re also planning to update the MobileXPRT UI to improve the look of the benchmark and make it easier to use.

Crucially, we’ll also build the app using the most current Android Studio SDK. Android development has changed significantly since we released MobileXPRT 2015 and apps must now conform to stricter standards that require explicit user permission for many tasks. Navigating these changes shouldn’t be too difficult, but it’s always possible that we’ll encounter unforeseen challenges at some point during the process.

Do you have suggestions for test scenarios that we should consider for MobileXPRT? Are there existing features we should remove? Are there elements of the UI that you find especially useful or have ideas for improving? Please let us know. We want to hear from you and make sure that MobileXPRT continues to meet your needs.

Justin

Thoughts from MWC Shanghai 2018

Ni hao from Shanghai! It is amazing the change that happens in a year. This year’s MWC Shanghai, like last year’s, took up about half of the Shanghai New International Expo Centre (SNIEC). “5G +” is the major theme and, unlike last year, 5G is not something in the distant future. It is now assumed to be in progress.

The biggest of the pluses was AI, with a number of booths explicitly sporting 5G + AI signage. There were also 5G plus robots, cars, and cloud services. Many of those are really about AI as well. The show makes it feel like 5G is everywhere and will make everything better (or at least a lot faster). And Asia is leading the way.

[caption id="attachment_3447" align="alignleft" width="640"]5G + robotics at MWCS 18. 5G + robotics at MWCS 18.[/caption]

Most of the booths touted their 5G support as they did last year, but rather than talking about the future, they tried to say that their 5G was now. They claimed their products were in real-world tests with anticipated deployment schedules. One of the keynote speakers talked about 1.2 billion 5G connections by 2025, with more than half of those in Asia. The purported scale and speed of the transition to 5G is staggering.

[caption id="attachment_3449" align="alignleft" width="640"]The keynote stage, displaying some big numbers. The keynote stage, displaying some big numbers.[/caption]

The last two halls I visited showed that world is not all 5G and AI. These halls looked at current fun applications of mobile technologies and companies developing technologies in the near future. MWC allowed children into one of the halls, where they (and we adults) could fly drones and experience VR technology. I watched in some amusement as people crashed drones, rode bikes with VR gear to simulate horses, were 3D scanned, and generally tried out new tech that didn’t always work.

The second hall included small booths from new companies working on future technologies that might be ready “4 years from now” (4YFN). These companies did not have much to show yet, but each booth displayed the company name and a short phrase summing up their future tech. That led to “Deepscent Labs is a smart scent data company,” ChineSpain is a “Marketplace of experiences for Chinese tourists in Spain,” and “Juice is a tech-based music contents startup that creates an ecosystem of music.” The mind boggles!

The XPRTs’ foray into AI with AIXPRT seems well timed based on this show. Other areas from this show that may be worth considering for the XPRTs are 5G and the cloud. We would love to hear your thoughts on those areas. We know they are important, but do you need the XPRTs and their emphasis on real-world benchmarks and workloads in those areas? Drop us a line and let us know!

Bill

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