Author Archives: Justin Greene

The XPRTs at IDF15 Shenzhen

on April 23, 2015

We recently traveled to Shenzhen, China to anchor Principled Technologies’ booth in the IDF15 Shenzhen technology showcase. Over 60 companies set up displays to interact with approximately 2,000 attendees, and it was a great opportunity for us to connect with innovators in one of the fastest-growing technology hubs in the world.

We spent most of our time talking with people about the benefits of the BenchmarkXPRT Development Community, demonstrating the XPRTs on our display systems, and describing the scope and abilities of each XPRT. Many of the people we talked with showed great interest in the XPRTs’ commitment to developing easy-to-use benchmarks that measure performance and battery life while doing everyday tasks.

Of course, we also spent a good deal of free time exploring Shenzhen and nearby Hong Kong. If you ever get the opportunity to visit either of these dynamic cities, you won’t be disappointed!

The IDF15 Shenzhen technology showcase floor. Our booth is just to the right of the gray-and-white balloon. The booming Shenzhen skyline, including the soon-to-be-second-tallest building in the world.

If we missed you at IDF15, or you have questions or comments about the Benchmark XPRT Development Community, feel free to contact us.

Justin

Posted in BenchmarkXPRT development community, Chinese, Collaborative benchmark development, IDF, Principled Technologies, Simplified Chinese, Trade Shows |

Activity all around

By Justin Greene

on October 2, 2014

It’s a busy time in XPRT land, and we wanted to share some news about upcoming events.

The first bit is an update about the CrXPRT 2014 Community Preview. We’ve been busy refining the benchmark, and feel like the current candidate build under test is likely to ship as our Community Preview. We’ll publish more details about the app and its workloads soon, but don’t be surprised to see a Community Preview announcement in the near future.

In Patching and future proofing, we discussed two potential problems while running MobileXPRT 2013 on some versions of Android 4.4 and the developer’s preview of Android L. The first problem involves the benchmark not showing scores when running on a Nexus 5 with the ART runtime enabled. The second problem was a failure of the Create Slideshow workload on Android L. In order to address the underlying cause of both problems, we’ll soon be issuing a patched MobileXPRT 2013 build. We’re still wrapping up our testing, but expect to release the patch at some point next week.

We’ll also be posting BatteryXPRT 2014 for Android APKs directly on the BatteryXPRT.com site. For users who have low bandwidth or trouble accessing the Google Play store, these APKs will make it easier to download the benchmark.

If you have any questions or concerns, please don’t hesitate to contact us at BenchmarkXPRTsupport@principledtechnologies.com.

Justin

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Posted in Android, BatteryXPRT 2014 for Android, Community Preview, CrXPRT, MobileXPRT |

Patching and future proofing

By Justin Greene

on September 18, 2014

We recently became aware of two potential issues with running MobileXPRT 2013 on versions of Android 4.4 (KitKat) and a pre-release version of Android L. The first involves a reported failure of MobileXPRT 2013 to display scores when running on a Nexus 5 running KitKat with the ART runtime enabled. ART is an experimental Android Runtime available on a number of mobile devices, and offers several features not found in Android’s current default runtime, Dalvik. We have not been able to reproduce this specific problem, and have successfully tested MobileXPRT on a Nexus 5 running Android 4.4.3 with ART enabled. If you encounter this problem, contact us at BenchmarkXPRTsupport@principledtechnologies.com.

The second issue is specific to the pre-release version of Android L. On that OS, we have seen a failure of the MobileXPRT Create Slideshow workload. We found that while previous versions of Android used specific addresses when loading libraries, this pre-release version of Android L loads libraries at different addresses as a security precaution. This appeared to be causing the workload failure. Recompiling with the –pie flag, so as to be position independent, seems to fix the problem.

As soon as thorough testing is complete, we’ll be releasing a patched build on MobileXPRT.com, and expect no problems running MobileXPRT on Android L.

If you have any questions about MobileXPRT or any of the other benchmarks, feel free to send us a message.

Justin

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Posted in Android, MobileXPRT, MobileXPRT 2013 source |

What do you think when you hear “Chromebook”?

By Justin Greene

on September 11, 2014

We’ve been thinking a lot about Chromebooks while doing all of our testing in preparation for the CrXPRT Community Preview. In both the models we’re testing and the ones announced in the press, we’ve seen just how much the Chromebook market is changing. Some folks even claim that Chromebook sales made up 35 percent of US commercial laptop sales in the first half of 2014. What’s even more interesting to us is the wide variety of Chromebooks on the market.

Choosing between Chromebooks these days is becoming more complicated than it used to be. There’s a greater range of hardware choices, and those choices can have a direct impact on performance and battery life. Some Chromebooks offer local storage up to 320 GB, touch screens, and 4G/LTE connectivity. Prices range widely, from $199 to $1,499. Even seemingly comparable systems can perform much differently when put to the test. For instance, we recently tested two Chromebooks separated by only $50 in price, but over 5 hours of estimated battery life!

Whether a consumer’s ultimate purchasing decision is based on price, specs, or a combination of factors, there are few things more valuable to buyers than reliable facts about performance and battery life. Benchmarking is ultimately about gaining useful data for decision making, and that’s why we’re excited about the value that CrXPRT will bring to the Chromebook discussion!

Justin

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Posted in Chrome OS, CrXPRT, Google Chrome, Performance of computing devices, What makes a good benchmark? |

HDXPRT 2014 source code is now available

By Justin Greene

on September 9, 2014

As mentioned in the XPRT blog, we are making the source code available to community members.

Download the HDXPRT 2014 source here.

We’re also posting HDXPRT build instructions in the Members Area. If you want more information, please contact BenchmarkXPRTsupport@principledtechnologies.com.

We look forward to your feedback!

Justin

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Posted in BenchmarkXPRT development community, HDXPRT, HDXPRT 2014, Source code |

Time to get creative

By Justin Greene

on September 4, 2014

The CrXPRT Community Preview is right around the corner, and there’s no sign of things slowing down. We’re exploring new opportunities on a number of fronts, and we’d love to hear what you think! We’re considering possible changes to WebXPRT and MobileXPRT, and since the mobile device market is changing all the time, we’re looking for the next great benchmark opportunity. In both cases, the development community is a rich source of ideas, so we’d like to tap into it one more time.

A while back, we added a new Web form in the members’ area for submitting benchmark ideas. Some of the ideas we have so far include:

A benchmark to evaluate camera features and photo quality on phones and tablets
A benchmark for measuring the performance of cloud services
A benchmark for measuring the performance and battery life of iOS-based devices

So, what would you like to see? Any of these, or do you have ideas we haven’t mentioned? Also, we’d love to hear your feedback on ways we can improve, both with the XPRTs themselves and with community life. Either way, send a message to BenchmarkXPRTSupport@principledtechnologies.com and let us know what you think!

Justin

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Posted in BenchmarkXPRT development community, Collaborative benchmark development, Community Preview, CrXPRT, MobileXPRT, WebXPRT, What makes a good benchmark? |

Author Archives: Justin Greene

The XPRTs at IDF15 Shenzhen

Activity all around

Patching and future proofing

What do you think when you hear “Chromebook”?

HDXPRT 2014 source code is now available

Time to get creative

Check out the other XPRTs: