Category: TouchXPRT

Getting to know TouchXPRT

on May 4, 2017

Many of our community members first encountered the XPRTs when reading about WebXPRT or MobileXPRT in a device review, using TouchXPRT or HDXPRT in an OEM lab, or using BatteryXPRT or CrXPRT to evaluate devices for bulk purchasing on behalf of a corporation or government agency. They know that specific XPRT provided great value in that context, but may not know about the other members of the XPRT family.

To help keep folks up to date on the full extent of XPRT capabilities, we like to occasionally “reintroduce” each of the XPRTs. This week, we invite you to get to know TouchXPRT.

We developed TouchXPRT 2016 as a Universal Windows Platform app for Windows 10. We wanted to offer a free tool that would provide consumers with objective information about how well a Windows 10 or Windows 10 Mobile laptop, tablet, or phone handles common media tasks. To do this, TouchXPRT runs five tests that simulate the kinds of photo, video, and music editing tasks people do every day. It measures how quickly the device completes each of those tasks and provides an overall score. To compare device scores, go to TouchXPRT.com and click View Results, where you’ll find scores from many different Windows 10 and Windows 10 Mobile devices.

TouchXPRT is easy to install and run, and is a great resource for anyone who wants to evaluate the performance of a Windows 10 device.

If you’d like to run TouchXPRT:

Simply download TouchXPRT from the Microsoft Store. (If that doesn’t work for you, you can also download it directly from TouchXPRT.com.) Installing it should take about 15 minutes, and the TouchXPRT 2016 release notes provide step-by-step instructions.

If you’d like to dig into the details:

Check out the Exploring TouchXPRT 2016 white paper. In it, we discuss the TouchXPRT development process, its component tests and workloads, and how it calculates individual workload and overall scores. We also provide instructions for automated testing.

BenchmarkXPRT Development Community members also have access to the TouchXPRT source code, so consider joining today. There’s no obligation and membership is free for members of any company or organization with an interest in benchmarks.

If you haven’t tried running TouchXPRT before, give it a shot and let us know what you think!

Justin

Posted in BenchmarkXPRT, BenchmarkXPRT development community, Mobile devices, Performance benchmarking, Performance testing on tablets, TouchXPRT, TouchXPRT 2016, TouchXPRT development process, TouchXPRT results |

TouchXPRT’s future

By Bill Catchings

on February 2, 2017

If you’ve been following the blog, you know that we’ve been reviewing each part of the XPRT portfolio. If you missed our discussions of HDXPRT, BatteryXPRT, WebXPRT, and CrXPRT, we encourage you to check them out and send us any thoughts you may have. This week, we continue that series by discussing the state of TouchXPRT and what we see down the road for it in 2017.

We released TouchXPRT 2016, an app for evaluating the performance of Windows 10 and Windows 10 Mobile devices, last February. We built the app by porting TouchXPRT 2014 performance workloads to the new Universal Windows App format, which allows a single app package to run on PCs, phones, tablets, and even consoles.

TouchXPRT 2016 installation is quick and easy, and the test completes in under 15 minutes on most devices. The app runs tests based on five everyday tasks (Beautify Photos, Blend Photos, Convert Videos for Sharing, Create Music Podcast, and Create Slideshow from Photos). It measures how long your device takes to complete each task, produces results for each scenario, and gives you an overall score.

As we think about the path forward for TouchXPRT, we’re aware that many expect 2017 to be a year of significant change in the Windows world, with two updates scheduled for release. Microsoft is slated to release the Windows 10 Creators Update (Build 1704) in April, and a subsequent version of Windows codenamed Redstone 3 may arrive this fall. Many tech observers believe that the Creators Update will introduce new creativity and gaming features, along with a UI upgrade named Project NEON. Major foundational shifts in the OS’s structure are more likely to appear with Redstone 3. At this point, quite a lot is still up in the air, but we’ll be following developments closely.

As we learn more about upcoming changes, we’ll have the opportunity to reevaluate TouchXPRT workloads and determine the best way to incorporate new technologies. Virtual reality, 3D, and 4K are especially exciting, but it’s too soon to know how we might incorporate them in a future version of TouchXPRT.

Because TouchXPRT 2016 continues to run well on a wide range of Windows 10 devices, we think it’s best to keep supporting the current version until we get a better idea of what’s in store for Windows.

If you have any thoughts on the future of Windows performance testing, please let us know!

Bill

Posted in BatteryXPRT 2014 for Android, BenchmarkXPRT development community, CrXPRT, Future of performance evaluation, HDXPRT, MobileXPRT, PCs, TouchXPRT, TouchXPRT 2016, TouchXPRT development process, TouchXPRT release cycle, WebXPRT 2017, Windows 10 |

Reflecting on 2016

By Justin Greene

on January 12, 2017

The beginning of a new year is a good time to look back on the previous 12 months and take stock of everything that happened. Here’s a quick recap of a very busy year:

In 2016, the XPRTs travelled quite a bit. Eric went to CES in Las Vegas, Mark attended MWC in Barcelona, and Bill flew out to IDF16 in Shenzhen.

We also sent a team to Seattle for the first XPRT Women Code-A-Thon, an event we’re very proud to have sponsored and co-hosted along with ChickTech, a nonprofit organization dedicated to increasing the number of women in tech-related fields. The Code-a-thon also served as inspiration for an eight-part video series entitled Women Coding for Change. The series explains the motivation behind the Code-a-thon and profiles several of the participants. If you haven’t watched the videos, check them out. They’re well worth the time.

Speaking of videos, we also published one about Nebula Wolf, the mini-game workload produced through our first collaboration with the North Carolina State Senior Design Center. That experience was promising enough for us to partner with another student team this past fall, which resulted in a virtual reality app that we hope to share with the community in the near future.

Of course, we also continued work on our suite of benchmark tools and related resources. We released TouchXPRT 2016 to the public, published the Exploring TouchXPRT 2016 white paper, and released the TouchXPRT 2016 source code to community members.

In 2016, we unveiled the XPRT Weekly Tech Spotlight, a new way for device vendors and manufacturers to share verified test results with buyers around the world. We put 46 devices in the spotlight throughout the year and published Back-to-School, Black Friday, and Holiday device showcases.

In the last quarter of 2016, we celebrated our most widely-used benchmark, WebXPRT, passing the 100,000-run milestone. WebXPRT is still going strong and is as useful and relevant as ever!

Finally, we ended the year with the exciting news that we’re moving forward with efforts to develop a machine-learning performance evaluation tool. We look forward to engaging with the community in the coming year as we tackle this challenge!

As always, we’re grateful for everyone who’s helped to make the BenchmarkXPRT Development Community a strong, vibrant, and relevant resource for people all around the world. Here’s to a great 2017!

Justin

Posted in CES, ChickTech Seattle, IDF, Machine learning, Mobile World Congress, Nebula Wolf, North Carolina State University, Source code, TouchXPRT 2016, Trade Shows, Video, Virtual reality, White papers, Women Coding for Change, Women in STEM, XPRT Weekly Tech Spotlight, XPRT Women Code-a-Thon |

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 |

The things we do now

By Eric Hale

on August 18, 2016

We mentioned a couple of weeks ago that the Microsoft Store added an option to indicate holographic support, which we selected for TouchXPRT. So, it was no surprise to see Microsoft announce that next year, they will release an update to Windows 10 that enables mainstream PCs to run the Windows Holographic shell. They also announced that they‘re working with Intel to develop a reference architecture for mixed-reality-ready PCs. Mixed-reality applications, which combine the real world with a virtual reality, demand sophisticated computer vision, and applications that can learn about the world around them.

As we’ve said before, we are constantly watching how people use their devices. One of the most basic principles of the XPRT benchmarks is to test devices using the same kinds of work that people do in the real world. As people find new ways to use their devices, the workloads in the benchmarks should evolve as well. Virtual reality, computer vision, and machine learning are among the technologies we are looking at.

What sorts of things are you doing today that you weren’t a year ago? (Other than Pokémon GO – we know about that one.) Would you like to see those sorts of workloads in the XPRTs? Let us know!

Eric

Posted in Benchmarking, computer vision, Future of performance evaluation, Holograph, Machine learning, TouchXPRT, TouchXPRT 2016, Virtual reality |

Smarter shopping for Windows 10 devices

By Eric Hale

on August 4, 2016

Microsoft released the Windows 10 Anniversary Update for PCs and tablets on Tuesday. (The Anniversary Update for Windows 10 Mobile is rolling out on August 9.) Justin explained a couple of weeks ago how to run HDXPRT on current builds of Windows 10, and we have verified that those instructions work for the released version of the Anniversary Update.

We’ve also made sure that TouchXPRT runs with the Anniversary Update. When we uploaded the latest TouchXPRT version to the Microsoft Store, we checked the box to say it supports holographic devices. We expect it will work, but we don’t have a HoloLens available for testing. We would love to hear from anyone who has the developer version of the HoloLens about any issues and any tips for resolving them.

If you’re considering buying a Windows 10 tablet or phone, you should be using TouchXPRT to inform your decision. TouchXPRT 2016 is a Universal Windows application, compatible with Windows 10 and Windows 10 Mobile. Like all the XPRTs, it produces a simple “bigger is better” score. You can find TouchXPRT scores online and in the XPRT Weekly Tech Spotlight.

Of course, you can also download and run TouchXPRT yourself. It’s available in the Windows Store or from TouchXPRT.com. Knowing the TouchXPRT score for your device is a great way to set a baseline for your next purchase!

Eric

Posted in HDXPRT, Holograph, TouchXPRT, TouchXPRT 2016, Windows 10, Windows 10 Anniversary Update, XPRT Weekly Tech Spotlight |

Category: TouchXPRT

Getting to know TouchXPRT

If you’d like to run TouchXPRT:

If you’d like to dig into the details:

TouchXPRT’s future

Reflecting on 2016

How do you say that?

The things we do now

Smarter shopping for Windows 10 devices

Check out the other XPRTs: