Category: CrXPRT

CrXPRT’s future

on January 19, 2017

This week, we’re continuing our review of the XPRT portfolio by discussing the future of CrXPRT. CrXPRT, designed for use with Chrome OS, is a tool for evaluating the performance and battery life of Chromebooks as they handle everyday tasks. The app’s performance test, which measures Chromebook speed, produces an overall score and individual scores for each workload. The battery life test produces an estimated battery life and a separate performance score. CrXPRT is easy to install and use, and like BatteryXPRT, it evaluates battery life in half a workday.

We developed CrXPRT in response to the growing popularity of Chromebooks, especially in the education sector. The number of OEMs manufacturing Chromebooks has grown dramatically, along with the range of Chromebook price points and form factors. That growth shows no signs of slowing down, so CrXPRT is more relevant than ever as a tool for helping consumers make informed buying decisions.

As Chromebook market share continues to grow, however, it’s clear that significant changes to the Chrome OS environment are on the way. One big change is Google’s decision to bring Android apps, and the Google Play store itself, to Chrome OS. Another change is the plan to “begin the evolution away” from the Chrome apps platform and phase out Chrome app support on other platforms within the next two years.

There are also reports of a hybrid Android-Chrome OS operating system. Codenamed “Andromeda,” it would unite the Android and Chrome OS environments in a manner similar to the way Microsoft Continuum allows Windows 10 to run on a wide variety of device types. Details on Andromeda are few and far between, but it would obviously be a game changer.

The Google Play store rollout to select Chromebooks is already well underway. As for the other changes, it remains to be seen exactly when and how they will be implemented. The Chromium team did state that all types of Chrome apps will remain supported and maintained on Chrome OS for the foreseeable future.

For us, it’s important to maintain the ability to measure both performance and battery life on Chromebooks. The current version of CrXPRT does the job well, so we don’t see a need for a new version until the situation becomes more clear. In the meantime, we’ll be keeping an eye on Chrome-related news.

As always, we’re interested in your feedback. If you have any thoughts on CrXPRT 2015 or the future of Chromebook evaluation, let us know!

Justin

Posted in Android, BatteryXPRT 2014 for Android, Chrome OS, Chromebooks, CrXPRT, Performance benchmarking, Windows 10 |

How do you say that?

By Eric Hale

on November 10, 2016

I recently saw this video, and heard something that I had never imagined: “Next we tested with what I assume is pronounced web-export.” I’ve had people ask if it was an acronym, but I ‘ve never heard it pronounced “export.”

How do we pronounce XPRT? The same way we pronounce “expert.” So, it’s “Benchmark expert,” “Web expert,” “Touch expert,” and so on. CrXPRT is pronounced “C‑R expert” and HDXPRT is pronounced “H‑D‑expert.”

When I was working in Australia, I got teased about my accent quite a bit, and my case-hardened American R was a particular target. So, when I say the letters out loud, is comes out something like “eks‑pee‑arrr‑tee,” (arrr like a pirate would say it) and “expert” is the closest match. This is true for most Americans. However, in many other accents, it’s more like “eks‑pee‑ah‑tee,” and “ex-paht” is much closer to “export.”

Yes, I think way too much about this stuff.

Eric

Posted in BenchmarkXPRT, BenchmarkXPRT development community, CrXPRT, HDXPRT, MobileXPRT, TouchXPRT, WebXPRT |

Rebalancing our portfolio

By Bill Catchings

on September 29, 2016

We’ve written recently about the many new ways people are using their devices, the growing breadth of types of devices, and how application environments also are changing. We’ve been thinking a lot about the ways benchmarks need to adapt and what new tests we should be developing.

As part of this process, we’re reviewing the XPRT portfolio. An example we wrote about recently was Google’s statement that they are bringing Android apps to Chrome OS and moving away from Chrome apps. Assuming the plan comes to fruition, it has big implications for CrXPRT, and possibly for WebXPRT as well. Another example is that once upon a time, HDXPRT included video playback tests. The increasing importance of 4K video might mean we should bring them back.

As always, we’re interested in your thoughts. Which tests do you see as the most useful going forward? Which ones do you think might be past their prime? What new areas do you like to see us start to address? Let us know!

Over the coming weeks, we’ll share our conclusions based on these market forces and your feedback. We’re excited about the possibilities and hope you are as well.

Bill

Posted in Android, Application-based benchmarks, BenchmarkXPRT development community, Chrome OS, Collaborative benchmark development, CrXPRT, Future of performance evaluation, HDXPRT, WebXPRT, What makes a good benchmark? |

Side by side

By Eric Hale

on August 11, 2016

We’re making a big upgrade to the Spotlight: It will now let you make side-by-side comparisons of any of the devices we’ve featured. You’ll also be able to filter devices by type.

We’ve also added pricing information to the Spotlight. The price of a device can vary a lot, depending on the options you select. We give you the price we paid for the device as we tested it. Because prices can vary over time, we also give the date when we bought the device.

We think these changes will make the Spotlight an even more powerful tool for helping with buying decisions.

We also created a special page, the Back to School Roundup. It provides side-by-side comparisons of 13 of the hottest devices to help families and students choose the right ones for their educational needs. We include a range of device types—all-in-ones, Chromebooks, convertibles, laptops, and tablets—and operating systems—Chrome OS, OS X, and Windows.

Going forward, we’ll be adding more advanced querying features. Of course, we’ll also add new devices every week.

Check it out! And, if you have any ideas about how to make the XPRT Weekly Tech Spotlight more useful, let us know!

Eric

Posted in BenchmarkXPRT, Chrome OS, Chromebooks, Cross-platform benchmarks, Education, OS X, Windows 10, XPRT Weekly Tech Spotlight |

They’re coming!

By Eric Hale

on June 16, 2016

We’ve been hearing for a while about Google’s plan to bring Android apps to Chrome. They recently published a video on the Google Developers channel that gives us some idea of what running Android apps on a Chromebook would look like.

Because I’m very interested in performance, the claim “Android apps can run full speed, with no overhead and no performance penalties” got my attention. You can bet we’ll be using the XPRTs to check that out! We’re using a Google developer tool called ARC Welder to do some experiments. However, it’s not fair or valid to print performance results based on a developer tool, so we’ll have to wait until the official release to see what the performance is really like.

Obviously, the use cases for Chrome will be changing. The demos in the video are for workloads we associate with PCs. MobileXPRT-type workloads might be more appropriate, or, assuming the scripting tools are available, perhaps HDXPRT-type workloads. We’ll be watching these developments closely to see how they will affect our future cross-platform benchmark.

Eric

Posted in Android, Chrome OS, Chromebooks, Google Chrome, HDXPRT, MobileXPRT, PCs |

Ready for your closeup?

By Eric Hale

on June 9, 2016

On January 6, we announced the XPRT Weekly Tech Spotlight. We spotlighted the first device, a Google Pixel C, on February 8. Since then, we’ve spotlighted around 20 devices, and the list keeps growing with phones, tablets, Chromebooks, and laptops. The XPRT Weekly Tech Spotlight has been a big success and is one of our most visited pages.

From the beginning, we’ve offered to spotlight your device for free, though we will need to keep the device to allow for retesting with future versions of the OS and benchmarks. Any device you contribute jumps to the head of the queue, and will be in the Spotlight the following week. We have a page for vendors with all the details.

As we continue to spotlight new devices, we are thinking about ways to allow you to compare their specs and XPRT results. We would love to hear your thoughts on what capabilities would be useful to you in those comparisons.

Looking forward to seeing your device in the spotlight soon!

Eric

Posted in Chromebooks, Laptops, Phones, Tablets, XPRT Weekly Tech Spotlight |

Category: CrXPRT

CrXPRT’s future

How do you say that?

Rebalancing our portfolio

Side by side

They’re coming!

Ready for your closeup?

Check out the other XPRTs: