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Category: Battery life

Sleep studies

Last week, we discussed the increasing complexity of power options in Android 6.0. Features such as Doze and App Standby have changed the way that the operating system manages app activity, and the wide array of UI skins used by many vendors ensures that the steps needed for pre-test configuration differ considerably from device to device.

Managing Android’s Doze feature is critical to getting a good BatteryXPRT score. To show how involved this process can be, we thought it might be helpful to present the steps for one device. Below my sig are the configuration steps we used for the Huawei Mate 8, which we recently featured in the XPRT Weekly Tech Spotlight. For other phones we’ve tested, the steps have been quite different. We’re working on distilling our experience for our tips and tricks document, and the updated version of the document will be available soon. If you have any useful tips, please let us know.

Justin

Whitelist BatteryXPRT (there are two ways to do this)
1) Access Battery manager from Settings/Advanced settings or from the Phone Manager app on the home screen.
2) Select Protected apps.
3) Use the toggles beside BatteryXPRT and BatteryXPRT Tests to allow them to keep running after the screen turns off.

Configure sleep settings
1) Open Settings from the home screen.
2) Select Display.
3) Select Sleep.
4) Select Never. This may reset to a default setting on its own. In our case, it reset to 10 minutes.

Configure screen lock settings
1) Open Settings from the home screen.
2) Select Advanced settings.
3) Select Security.
4) Scroll to the bottom of the list and use the toggle to turn off Screen lock. This keeps the device screen from locking after standby periods during the test.

Staying awake

Android developers continue to respond to user demands for longer battery life. Android 6 brought a number of enhancements to improve battery life, and Android N promises even more! Device makers often add device-specific options in their customized UIs, which means the options can differ greatly from device to device. A power-conscious user has a lot more control, but with that control comes complexity.

Not that long ago, preparing a device to run BatteryXPRT was simple: turn off automatic updates, kill unnecessary backgrounds apps, and set the screen to stay awake for at least 30 minutes. That’s still the case for many devices. However, it’s often much more complex. You may have to whitelist BatteryXPRT to keep Android from killing it when the device is in standby. Always-on features may interfere with standby. Security lock timers can override screen-timeout settings for the display – and the list goes on.

We’ve been testing a lot of devices and taking notes. In the next couple of weeks, we’ll be updating the BatteryXPRT Tips and Tricks document to reflect what we’ve learned. If you’ve encountered any of these issues, we’d love to add your tips to the list, so please send them our way!

Eric

Time for a merger of equals?

As I said last week, we’re working on the design document for the new version of MobileXPRT, and we expect to have it out in the next couple of weeks. We have several ideas we’re pretty excited about.

One of the ideas we’ve been considering is merging BatteryXPRT and MobileXPRT into a single benchmark. This would be similar to what we’ve done with CrXPRT, which has tests for both battery life and performance. As with CrXPRT, you’d be able to run either test, and you could get performance and battery life for a device in a single day using a single benchmark.

If we as the community do decide to merge the benchmarks, there will be a lot to think about. For example, MobileXPRT is unaware whether it’s connected to the Internet, while BatteryXPRT not only detects how it’s connected, but selects the appropriate Airplane mode or Network-Wifi Mode test. And, of course, we’d have to figure out what to call it.

What do you think about merging the two benchmarks? Would it make your life simpler? What other features would you like to see in the new MobileXPRT? This is the time to speak up!

Eric

It’s been a show to watch!

Mobile World Congress 2015 (MWC) has been happening this week in Barcelona. There have been lots of cool phones and tablets, of course, but also there has also been a lot of other cool stuff. From smart watches, foldable keyboards, and 200 GB SD cards to “privacy glasses,” electric bicycles, and even furniture from IKEA, this has definitely been a show to watch.

As you know, Bill is our man in Barcelona. If you read Bill’s blog, you know he lives for this sort of stuff. He’s also been meeting with vendors and having great conversations about the XPRTs.

Last week I mentioned that Bill took a great-looking handout to MWC with him. For those who have been wondering what a megaphone had to do with anything, here’s what the front and back look like.

Let the world know blue Let the world know red

Even though MWC hasn’t ended yet, we’re already deep into preparations for Intel Developer Forum 2015 – Shenzhen. We’ll have more to say about that in the weeks to come.

In other news, we released a new build of BatteryXPRT 2014, v103. The build fixes a problem reported by a reviewer testing the LG G3. Scores from this build are comparable with previous BatteryXPRT scores. Click here for more details.

Eric

An updated BatteryXPRT 2014 build is available

Today we’re releasing a new build of BatteryXPRT 2014 (v103) at BatteryXPRT.com and the Google Play store. The build fixes a problem reported by a reviewer testing the LG G3. The device was going to sleep during the performance test, and causing BatteryXPRT to crash after waking up. We’ve seen this problem only on the LG G3, but it may occur on other devices as well.

The new BatteryXPRT build prevents the device from entering a sleep state. Scores from this build are comparable with previous BatteryXPRT scores.

Click here to download the new BatteryXPRT installer (318 MB) directly from our site.

For users who have limited bandwidth or trouble accessing the Google Play store, downloading the APK files (16.9 MB total) may make installation easier.

Download the updated BatteryXPRT APK (2.7 MB) directly from our site.

Download the updated BatteryXPRT Tests APK (14.2 MB) directly from our site.

If you have any questions about the update or any other XPRT-related topic, feel free to contact us at BenchmarkXPRTsupport@principledtechnologies.com.

Staying Awake

Here in the Eastern US, we’re in a deep freeze. Wherever you are, I hope you’re comfortable and safe.

Tomorrow, we’ll be releasing a patch to MobileXPRT. This patch fixes a problem first reported in a Tom’s Hardware review of the LG G3. The reviewer was not able to get MobileXPRT to run to completion on that device. We looked at the problem and found that the LG G3 was going to sleep during the performance test, and that when the device woke up, MobileXPRT caught an exception and crashed. This problem appeared to be specific to the LG G3, but could occur on other devices as well.

When we changed MobileXPRT to keep the screen active during the run of the app, the benchmark ran on LG G3 without any issues. We’ve tested this fix on our entire test bed and found that it works well. As always, the results remain comparable with previous versions.

We’ve made the same change in BatteryXPRT and are testing it now. Testing BatteryXPRT takes more time than testing MobileXPRT, but we hope to release the patch soon.

In other news, Bill is going to Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, March 2-4, and he would love to meet you. If you are also planning to go, let us know.

Eric

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