Author Archives: Eric Hale

Looking ahead

on April 21, 2016

It’s only been a couple of weeks since we announced a cross-platform XPRT. It’s still early days, but we’ve already started getting ideas from vendors and media—from both people within the community and those who have not yet joined. We’re incorporating these ideas into our investigations, and plan to be sending a design document for the community to critique in a few weeks.

However, we are always looking ahead and Bill’s trip to IDF16 got us thinking about future benchmarks. Virtual reality is obviously going to be big. Bill said that he thinks he saw more things using the Oculus Rift than there are Oculus Rifts in the world! The Internet of Things has been ramping up for a while now, and shows no sign of slowing down. Computer vision is another emerging area, one with many possible applications. There are a lot of exciting possibilities!

As always, we want to know what you think. What upcoming technologies are you excited about? What would like to see in these benchmarks? Please let us know!

Eric

Posted in Android, Benchmark metrics, BenchmarkXPRT development community, Collaborative benchmark development, Cross-platform benchmarks, Future of performance evaluation, IDF, iOS, MobileXPRT, Virtual reality, Windows 10 |

Quarterly review

By Eric Hale

on March 31, 2016

It’s been one of our busiest quarters ever! Here’s a quick review of what’s been happening:

The XPRTs were on the road a lot!

In January, I was at CES in Las Vegas.
In February, Mark was at MWC in Barcelona.
In March, we held the first ever XPRT Women Code-A-Thon in Seattle.

While I was at CES, I was lucky enough to be able to sit down and talk on-the-record with a couple of community members:

Brett Howse of AnandTech, who also wrote a clarification of some points from our conversation.
Patrick Chang, Senior System Engineer in the Tablet Performance group at Dell.

Many thanks to them for being so generous with their time and their insights.

We also gave folks a lot to look at:

TouchXPRT 2016: After solving a problem with TouchXPRT’s Create Slideshow test and releasing a new community preview, we released it to the general public.
Nebula Wolf: We sponsored a semester-long senior project at North Carolina State University, which resulted in a game-based workload. There’s a really cool video, and community members can play the game (login required).
XPRT Weekly Tech Spotlight: Every week we put a different device in the spotlight, giving its specs and testing it with the XPRTs.

That is a great start to the year, but we’re going to top it – Next week, we’ll kick off Q2 with one of our biggest announcements ever!

Eric

Posted in AnandTech, BenchmarkXPRT, Brett Howse, CES, Collaborative benchmark development, Community Preview, Dell, Mobile World Congress, Mobile World Congress, Nebula Wolf, North Carolina State University, Patrick Chang, TouchXPRT, TouchXPRT 2016, XPRT Women Code-a-Thon |

BenchmarkXPRT Development Community releases the “Exploring TouchXPRT 2016” white paper

By Eric Hale

on March 29, 2016

Durham, NC, March 28 – The BenchmarkXPRT Development Community, administered by Principled Technologies (PT), is pleased to announce the release of the “Exploring TouchXPRT 2016” white paper. The white paper discusses the details of the TouchXPRT 2016 benchmark, including the development process, new features, descriptions of its component tests and workloads, and how the benchmark calculates individual workload and overall scores. The paper also shows how to submit test results and automate testing.

Interested parties can download the white paper at www.BenchmarkXPRT.com/whitepapers.

To learn more about TouchXPRT and download the benchmark, please visit TouchXPRT.com.

To learn more about and join the BenchmarkXPRT Development Community, go to www.BenchmarkXPRT.com.

About Principled Technologies, Inc.
Principled Technologies, Inc. is a leading provider of technology marketing and learning & development services.

Principled Technologies, Inc. is located in Durham, North Carolina, USA. For more information, please visit www.principledtechnologies.com.

Company Contact
Eric Hale
Principled Technologies, Inc.
1007 Slater Road, Suite #300
Durham, NC 27703

Posted in Press Releases, TouchXPRT 2016, TouchXPRT Press Releases, White papers |

XPRT Weekly Tech Spotlight Shines on the Samsung Galaxy S7

By Eric Hale

on March 24, 2016

DURHAM, NC–(Marketwired – March 24, 2016) – Principled Technologies (PT) is pleased to announce that this week’s XPRT Weekly Tech Spotlight features one of 2016’s most anticipated phones, the Samsung Galaxy S7.

Each week, the XPRT Weekly Tech Spotlight highlights a different tech device and posts its PT-verified BenchmarkXPRT performance results and specs online, so buyers everywhere can have the facts they need to make smart buying decisions.

The US version of the Samsung Galaxy S7, released on March 11, combines a Qualcomm Snapdragon 820 processor, 4 GB of RAM, and an Adreno 530 GPU with a 5.1″ screen and 1440 x 2560 display resolution. BatteryXPRT for Android 2014, MobileXPRT 2015, and WebXPRT 2015 scores provide insight into the Galaxy S7’s performance and battery life during everyday tasks.

XPRT Weekly Tech Spotlight, which debuted February 16, makes it easier for consumers to shop for a new laptop, smartphone, tablet, or PC. Recent devices include the Apple iPad Pro, the Microsoft Surface Pro 4, and the Google Pixel C. See the full list of available devices on the XPRT Weekly Tech Spotlight page.

Vendors interested in having their devices featured in the XPRT Weekly Tech Spotlight should check out the vendor’s page for more details.

About Principled Technologies, Inc.

Principled Technologies, Inc. is a leading provider of technology marketing and learning & development services. It administers the BenchmarkXPRT Development Community.

Principled Technologies, Inc. is located in Durham, North Carolina, in NC’s Research Triangle Park region. For more information, please visit www.PrincipledTechnologies.com.

Company Contact
Eric Hale
Principled Technologies, Inc.
1007 Slater Road, Suite 300
Durham, NC 27703

Posted in Press Releases, TouchXPRT Press Releases |

The big weekend is almost here!

By Eric Hale

on March 10, 2016

A few weeks ago, I talked about the XPRT Women Code-a-Thon. Well, all the work that we and our friends at ChickTech Seattle have done is about to pay off! On Saturday, March 12, dozens of women will go to the Sole Repair Shop in Seattle for two days of coding, good food, and networking opportunities.

The goal of each team at the code-a-thon is to create a new workload that might be included in a future version of WebXPRT or MobileXPRT. Judges will award prizes to the top three workloads: $2,500 for first place, $1,500 for second place, and $1,000 for third place. I can’t wait to see the winning workloads!

We’re very fortunate to have Kristin Toth Smith as the keynote speaker. She is an avid supporter of women in tech, current COO of Dolly, and former CEO of Code Fellows.

It should be a great time for all. If you or anyone you know can get to Seattle this weekend, registration is still open.

Eric

Last week in the XPRTs
We published the XPRT Weekly Tech Spotlight on the ASUS ZenFone 2.
We added one new BatteryXPRT ’14 result.
We added five new WebXPRT ’15 results.

Posted in ChickTech Seattle, Collaborative benchmark development, MobileXPRT 2015, WebXPRT 2015, XPRT Women Code-a-Thon |

Is it hot in here?

By Eric Hale

on March 3, 2016

One of the great meetings I had at CES was with another community member, Patrick Chang, Senior System Engineer in the Tablet Performance group at Dell. I was glad to hear that, when he tests his devices, Patrick makes frequent use of TouchXPRT.

While TouchXPRT stresses the system appropriately, Patrick’s job requires him to understand not only how well the device performs, but why it performs that way. He was wondering what we could do to help him correlate the temperature, power consumption, and performance of a device.

That information is not typically available to software and apps like the XPRTs. However, it may be possible to add some hooks that would let the XPRTs coordinate with third-party utilities and hardware that do.

As always, the input from the community guides the design of the XPRTs. So, we’d love to know how much interest the community has in having this type of information. If you have thoughts about this, or other kinds of information you’d like the XPRTs to gather, please let us know!

Eric

Last week in the XPRTs
We published the XPRT Weekly Tech Spotlight on the Apple iPad Pro.
We added one new BatteryXPRT ’14 result.
We added one new CrXPRT ’15 result.
We added one new MobileXPRT ’13 result.
We added four new WebXPRT ’15 results.

Posted in Benchmark metrics, Benchmarking, BenchmarkXPRT, CES, Collaborative benchmark development, Dell, Future of performance evaluation, Patrick Chang, Performance benchmarking, Power consumption, Temperature, TouchXPRT, Trade Shows, What makes a good benchmark? |

Author Archives: Eric Hale

Looking ahead

Quarterly review

BenchmarkXPRT Development Community releases the “Exploring TouchXPRT 2016” white paper

XPRT Weekly Tech Spotlight Shines on the Samsung Galaxy S7

The big weekend is almost here!

Is it hot in here?

Check out the other XPRTs: