BenchmarkXPRT Blog banner

Category: JavaScript

A note about CrXPRT 2

Recent visitors to CrXPRT.com may have seen a notice that encourages visitors to use WebXPRT 4 instead of CrXPRT 2 for performance testing on high-end Chromebooks. The notice reads as follows:

NOTE: Chromebook technology has progressed rapidly since we released CrXPRT 2, and we’ve received reports that some CrXPRT 2 workloads may not stress top-bin Chromebook processors enough to give the necessary accuracy for users to compare their performance. So, for the latest test to compare the performance of high-end Chromebooks, we recommend using WebXPRT 4.

We made this recommendation because of the evident limitations of the CrXPRT 2 performance workloads when testing newer high-end hardware. CrXPRT 2 itself is not that old (2020), but when we created the CrXPRT 2 performance workloads, we started with a core framework of CrXPRT 2015 performance workloads. In a similar way, we built the CrXPRT 2015 workloads on a foundation of WebXPRT 2015 workloads. At the time, the harness and workload structures we used to ensure WebXPRT 2015’s cross-browser capabilities provided an excellent foundation that we could adapt for our new ChromeOS benchmark. Consequently, CrXPRT 2 is a close developmental descendant of WebXPRT 2015. Some of the legacy WebXPRT 2015/CrXPRT 2 workloads do not stress current high-end processors—a limitation that prevents effective performance testing differentiation—nor do they engage the latest web technologies.

In the past, the Chromebook market skewed heavily toward low-cost devices with down-bin, inexpensive processors, making this limitation less of an issue. Now, however, more Chromebooks offer top-bin processors on par with traditional laptops and workstations. Because of the limitations of the CrXPRT 2 workloads, we now recommend WebXPRT 4 for both cross-browser and ChromeOS performance testing on the latest high-end Chromebooks. WebXPRT 4 includes updated test content, newer JavaScript tools and libraries, modern WebAssembly workloads, and additional Web Workers tasks that cover a wide range of performance requirements.

While CrXPRT 2 continues to function as a capable performance and battery life comparison test for many ChromeOS devices, WebXPRT 4 is a more appropriate tool to use with new high-end devices. If you haven’t yet used WebXPRT 4 for Chromebook comparison testing, we encourage you to give it a try!

If you have any questions or concerns about CrXPRT 2 or WebXPRT 4, please don’t hesitate to ask!

Justin

Celebrating 10 years of WebXPRT!

We’re excited to announce that it’s been 10 years since the initial launch of WebXPRT! In early 2013, we introduced WebXPRT as a unique browser performance benchmark in a market space that was already crowded with a variety of specialized measurement tools. Our goal was to offer a benchmark that could compare the performance of almost any web-enabled device, using scenarios created to mirror real-world tasks. We wanted it to be a free, easily accessible, easy-to-run, useful, and appealing testing option for OEM labs, vendors, and the tech press.

When we look back on the last 10 years of WebXPRT, we can’t help but conclude that our efforts have been successful. Since those early days, the WebXPRT market presence has grown from humble beginnings into a worldwide industry standard. Hundreds of tech press publications have used WebXPRT in thousands of articles and reviews, and testers have now run the benchmark well over 1.1 million times.

Below, I’ve listed some of the WebXPRT team’s accomplishments over the last decade. If you’ve been following WebXPRT from the beginning, this may all be familiar, but if you’re new to the  community, it may be interesting to see some of the steps that contributed to making WebXPRT what it is today.

In future blog posts, we’ll look at how the number of WebXPRT runs has grown over time, and how WebXPRT use has grown among OEMs, vendors, and the tech press worldwide. Do you have any thoughts that you’d like to share from your WebXPRT testing experience? If so, let us know!

Justin

The WebXPRT 4 results viewer is live!

In October, we shared an early preview of the new results viewer tool that we’ve been developing in parallel with WebXPRT 4. The WebXPRT 4 Preview is now available to the public, and we’re excited to announce that the new results viewer is also live. We already have over 65 test results in the viewer, and in the weeks leading up to the WebXPRT 4 general release, we’ll be actively populating the viewer with the latest PT-curated WebXPRT 4 Preview results.

We encourage readers to visit the blog for details about the viewer’s features, and to take some time to explore the data. We’re excited about this new tool, which we view as an ongoing project with room for expansion and improvement based on user feedback.

If you have any questions or comments about the WebXPRT 4 Preview or the new results viewer, please feel free to contact us!

Justin

Here’s what to expect in the WebXPRT 4 Preview

A few months ago, we shared detailed information about the changes we expected to make in WebXPRT 4. We are currently doing internal testing of the WebXPRT 4 Preview build in preparation for releasing it to the public. We want to let our readers know what to expect.

We’ve made some changes since our last update and some of the details we present below could still change before the preview release. However, we are much closer to the final product. Once we release the WebXPRT 4 Preview, testers will be able to publish scores from Preview build testing. We will limit any changes that we make between the Preview and the final release to the UI or features that are not expected to affect test scores.

General changes

Some of the non-workload changes we’ve made in WebXPRT 4 relate to our typical benchmark update process.

  • We have updated the aesthetics of the WebXPRT UI to make WebXPRT 4 visually distinct from older versions. We did not significantly change the flow of the UI.
  • We have updated content in some of the workloads to reflect changes in everyday technology, such as upgrading most of the photos in the photo processing workloads to higher resolutions.
  • We have not yet added a looping function to the automation scripts, but are still considering it for the future.
  • We investigated the possibility of shortening the benchmark by reducing the default number of iterations from seven to five, but have decided to stick with seven iterations to ensure that score variability remains acceptable across all platforms.

Workload changes

  • Photo Enhancement. We increased the efficiency of the workload’s Canvas object creation function, and replaced the existing photos with new, higher-resolution photos.
  • Organize Album Using AI. We replaced ConvNetJS with WebAssembly (WASM) based OpenCV.js for both the face detection and image classification tasks. We changed the images for the image classification tasks to images from the ImageNet dataset.
  • Stock Option Pricing. We updated the dygraph.js library.
  • Sales Graphs. We made no changes to this workload.
  • Encrypt Notes and OCR Scan. We replaced ASM.js with WASM for the Notes task and updated the WASM-based Tesseract version for the OCR task.
  • Online Homework. In addition to the existing scenario which uses four Web Workers, we have added a scenario with two Web Workers. The workload now covers a wider range of Web Worker performance, and we calculate the score by using the combined run time of both scenarios. We also updated the typo.js library.

Experimental workloads

As part of the WebXPRT 4 development process, we researched the possibility of including two new workloads: a natural language processing (NLP) workload, and an Angular-based message scrolling workload. After much testing and discussion, we have decided to not include these two workloads in WebXPRT 4. They will be good candidates for us to add as experimental WebXPRT 4 workloads in 2022.

The release timeline

Our goal is to publish the WebXPRT 4 preview build by December 15th, which will allow testers to publish scores in the weeks leading up to the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas in January 2022. We will provide more detailed information about the GA timeline here in the blog as soon as possible.

If you have any questions about the details we’ve shared above, please feel free to ask!

Justin

Thinking ahead to WebXPRT 4

It’s been about two years since we released WebXPRT 3, and we’re starting to think about the WebXPRT 4 development cycle. With over 529,000 runs to date, WebXPRT continues to be our most popular benchmark because it’s quick and easy to run, it runs on almost anything with a web browser, and it evaluates performance using the types of web technologies that many people use every day.

For each new version of WebXPRT, we start the development process by looking at browser trends and analyzing the feasibility of incorporating new web technologies into our workload scenarios. For example, in WebXPRT 3, we updated the Organize Album workload to include an image-classification task that uses deep learning. We also added an optical character recognition task to the Encrypt Notes and OCR scan workload, and introduced a new Online Homework workload that combined part of the DNA Sequence Analysis scenario with a writing sample/spell check scenario.

Here are the current WebXPRT 3 workloads:

  • Photo Enhancement: Applies three effects, each using Canvas, to two photos.
  • Organize Album Using AI: Detects faces and classifies images using the ConvNetJS neural network library.
  • Stock Option Pricing: Calculates and displays graphic views of a stock portfolio using Canvas, SVG, and dygraphs.js.
  • Encrypt Notes and OCR Scan: Encrypts notes in local storage and scans a receipt using optical character recognition.
  • Sales Graphs: Calculates and displays multiple views of sales data using InfoVis and d3.js.
  • Online Homework: Performs science and English assignment tasks using Web Workers and Typo.js spell check.

What new technologies or workload scenarios should we add? Are there any existing features we should remove? Would you be interested in an associated battery life test? We want to hear your thoughts and ideas about WebXPRT, so please tell us what you think!

Justin

WebXPRT: What would you like to see?

At over 412,000 runs and counting, WebXPRT is our most popular benchmark. From the first release in 2013, it’s been popular with device manufacturers, developers, tech journalists, and consumers because it’s easy to run, it runs on almost anything with a web browser, and it evaluates device performance using the types of web-based tasks that people are likely to encounter on a daily basis.

With each new version of WebXPRT, we analyze browser development trends to make sure the test’s underlying web technologies and workload scenarios adequately reflect the ways people are using their browsers to work and play. BenchmarkXPRT Development Community members can play an important part in that process by sending us feedback on existing tests and suggestions for new workloads to include.

For example, when we released WebXPRT 3, we updated the photo workloads with new images and a deep learning task used for image classification. We also added an optical character recognition task in the Encrypt Notes and OCR scan workload, and combined part of the DNA Sequence Analysis scenario with a writing sample/spell check scenario to simulate online homework in an all-new Online Homework workload.

Consider for a moment what an ideal future version of WebXPRT would look like for you. Are there new web technologies or workload scenarios that you would like to see? Would you be interested in an associated battery life test? Should we include experimental tests? We’re interested in what you have to say, so please feel free to contact us with your thoughts or questions.

If you’re just now learning about WebXPRT, we offer several resources to help you better understand the benchmark and its range of uses. For a general overview of why WebXPRT matters, watch our video titled What is WebXPRT and why should I care? To read more about the details of the benchmark’s development and structure, check out the Exploring WebXPRT 3 white paper. To see WebXPRT 2015 and WebXPRT 3 scores from a wide range of processors, visit the WebXPRT 3 Processor Comparison Chart.

We look forward to hearing from you!

Justin

Check out the other XPRTs:

Forgot your password?