Category: Battery life

An updated BatteryXPRT 2014 for Android build is available

on December 3, 2014

Today we’re releasing a new build of BatteryXPRT 2014 for Android (v101) at BatteryXPRT.com and the Google Play store. This build addresses issues we saw with the Create Slideshow Workload when testing on Android 5 devices. The tests have not changed, so new scores are comparable with previous BatteryXPRT scores.

Although the patch works on the majority of Android 5 devices, we are continuing to investigate intermittent failures on the Nexus 9. Please see the Monday’s blog post, for details.

Click here to download the new BatteryXPRT installer (317 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.

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Posted in Android, Battery life, BatteryXPRT 2014 for Android, BenchmarkXPRT |

An update for BatteryXPRT 2014 for Android

By Eric Hale

on December 1, 2014

For those of you in the US, I hope you had a happy Thanksgiving.

A couple of weeks ago, we updated MobileXPRT so that it would run correctly on Android 5 (Android L) devices. Later this week, we will be updating BatteryXPRT as well. The current BatteryXPRT build doesn’t work with Android 5 due to failures of the Create Slideshow workload. This is the same workload failure we fixed with an updated MobileXPRT build.

The new build greatly improves things. We successfully tested the new build on an array of Android 5 and 4.4 devices with no failures. However, we have seen the new build of BatteryXPRT return intermittent errors during the Create Photo Collage and Apply Photo Effects workloads when testing on the Nexus 9.

Because the error on the Nexus 9 is intermittent, it’s possible to get results from some runs. These results are still valid.

We haven’t seen this failure on any device other than the Nexus 9, but cannot guarantee that there aren’t others. If you see any other failures, or have any questions, please contact us.

We’re currently working on a solution for this problem. We will, as always, keep you informed.

Eric

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Posted in Android, Battery life, BatteryXPRT 2014 for Android, Collaborative benchmark development, MobileXPRT |

Getting the most from the XPRTs

By Eric Hale

on October 30, 2014

BatteryXPRT can measure battery life three ways: in Airplane mode, Wireless connection mode, and Cellular connection mode.

A couple of weeks ago, Tom’s Hardware ran a review of the NVIDIA Shield Tablet that shows the value of being able to compare different ways of using your device. The review gave results for two of the three modes, Airplane mode and Wireless mode, for the devices under test. While all devices had lower battery life in Wireless mode, the NVIDIA Shield Tablet showed a much larger difference between the two modes than other devices.

The review offers some technical reasons why this might be so. However, the review also includes a sentence that goes to the heart of our mission to provide easy-to-use tools that reflect real-world usage and can be used in a variety of ways. As the reviewer at Tom’s Hardware noted: “I’ve also noticed what I would consider excessive power drain during standby with Wi-Fi left on, which subjectively corroborates these results.” That is what we like to hear!

We are always looking for ways to make our tools more versatile and useful. If you have ideas, please let us know!

Eric

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Posted in Android, Battery life, BatteryXPRT 2014 for Android, Benchmarking, BenchmarkXPRT |

CrXPRT is here!

By Eric Hale

on October 15, 2014

Today we are releasing the CrXPRT 2014 Community Preview (CP1). As mentioned in a previous post, CrXPRT contains performance and battery life tests. The performance suite includes five scenarios utilizing Web browsing and JavaScript workloads, plus Portable Native Client (PNaCl) and WebGL-based scenarios. The battery life test incorporates all of the performance workloads and adds video playback, audio playback, and HTML5 gaming scenarios.

The battery life test in CP1 builds on the lessons we learned from developing BatteryXPRT 2014 for Android. In fact, we’ve been able to improve on the testing time. BatteryXPRT 2014 requires 5.5 hours to estimate battery life; CP1 can estimate battery life in only 3.5 hours. The battery test in CP1 still requires the device be put in developer mode, so we’re investigating the new Chrome OS battery status APIs. We hope these will make it possible to remove this restriction in a future release.

The estimates for battery life are generally pretty accurate. However, we have seen runs where the battery life results were much higher than expected. We are continuing to investigate this. If you see an anomalous result, please let us know. It is worth noting that the performance scores have been very consistent.

Because this is a community preview, you have to be a community member to download it. However, joining is very easy.

Check out the new CrXPRT, and let us know what you think!

Eric

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Posted in Battery life, BenchmarkXPRT development community, Chrome OS, Community Preview, CrXPRT, Performance benchmarking |

Seeing the whole picture

By Justin Greene

on August 21, 2014

In past posts, we’ve discussed how people tend to focus on hardware differences when comparing performance or battery life scores between systems, but software factors such as OS version, choice of browser, and background activity often influence benchmark results on multiple levels.

For example, AnandTech recently published an article explaining how a decision by Google Chrome developers to increase Web page rendering times may have introduced a tradeoff between performance and battery life. To increase performance, Chrome asks Windows to use 1ms interrupt timings instead of the default 15.6ms timing. Unlike other applications that wait for the default timing, Chrome ends up getting its work done more often.

The tradeoff for that increased performance is that waking up the OS more frequently can diminish the effectiveness of a system’s innate power-saving attributes, such as a tick-less kernel and timer coalescing in Windows 8, or efficiency innovations in a new chip architecture. In this case, because of the OS-level interactions between Chrome and Windows, a faster browser could end up having a greater impact on battery life than might initially be suspected.

The article discusses the limitations of their test in detail, specifically with regards to Chrome 36 not being able to natively support the same HiDPI resolution as the other browsers, but the point we’re drawing out here is that accurate testing involves taking all relevant factors into consideration. People are used to the idea that changing browsers may impact Web performance, but not so much is said about a browser’s impact on battery life.

Justin

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Posted in Battery life, Benchmark metrics, Google Chrome, Performance benchmarking, Windows 8 |

It makes a difference

By Eric Hale

on July 3, 2014

Ars Technica reported this week that they tested the developer preview of Android L and saw a whopping 36 percent improvement in battery life! Google made improving battery life a priority, and it sounds like they are succeeding. I can’t wait to test Android L with BatteryXPRT.

This is a spectacular example of how a change in software can change benchmark results, but it’s hardly unique. I’ve written before about how background activity on a phone depressed my friend’s WebXPRT scores. AnandTech used both IE 11 and Chrome 30 to test the Surface Pro 2 with a variety of benchmarks, including WebXPRT, SunSpider, Octane, Browsermark, and others. Browser choice had a noticeable impact on results – about a 40 percent difference for WebXPRT and a 76 percent difference for SunSpider!

People are generally pretty aware that changing the hardware changes performance. However, sometimes they lose track of software differences. When you compare scores, it’s not always possible to keep all the variables the same, but it’s crucial to know what the differences are.

In other BenchmarkXPRT news, we’re making some final adjustments to HDXPRT 2014, and the general release is just around the corner.

Eric

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Posted in Android, Battery life, HDXPRT 2014, Performance benchmarking, Performance testing on tablets, WebXPRT |

Category: Battery life

An updated BatteryXPRT 2014 for Android build is available

An update for BatteryXPRT 2014 for Android

Getting the most from the XPRTs

CrXPRT is here!

Seeing the whole picture

It makes a difference

Check out the other XPRTs: