Category: TouchXPRT 2014

More grease, more tracks

on March 27, 2014

We’re always looking for ways to make it easier for people to use the benchmarks and interact with the community. I wrote about a new form for suggesting new benchmarks last week. However, we are not stopping there.

Although the community previews for TouchXPRT 2014 and BatteryXPRT 2014 for Android have been out for a few weeks, we’ve continued to improve them before their general releases. For example, we mentioned in TouchXPRT CP1 that we would continue making changes to the UI.

Taking a cue from WebXPRT 2013, the upcoming general releases of TouchXPRT 2014 and BatteryXPRT 2014 for Android will have a button in the UI for submitting results. This will make it easier for you to submit your results to be approved for publication on the PT Web site.

Although there’s not much time left before the general releases of these benchmarks, it’s not too late to send in your ideas. Even if we can’t use your suggestions in this release, we may be able to use them in the future. Let us know what you think by posting to the forum or emailing us at BenchmarkXPRTsupport@principledtechnologies.com.

Eric

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Posted in BatteryXPRT 2014 for Android, Collaborative benchmark development, Community Preview, Let us know your thoughts, TouchXPRT, TouchXPRT 2014, WebXPRT |

MWC is coming

By Eric Hale

on February 20, 2014

As you probably know, the Mobile World Congress (MWC) starts Monday in Barcelona. Bill loves gadgets, loves Barcelona, and loves talking about technology, so he’s really looking forward to being there.

Bill’s got a lot to talk about. In January, we released the first community preview for TouchXPRT 2014. Then on February 7, 2014, we released the first community preview for a brand new benchmark: BatteryXPRT 2014 for Android. Not only that, HDXPRT and WebXPRT are in development. And he always loves to hear about new areas where you are interested in having benchmarks.

And that’s not all – If you read Bill and Mark’s post about being at CES, you’ll be happy to know that the Golden Tickets are back! The Golden Tickets let you join the community and get your device tested for free. If you’re a mobile device manufacturer, be sure to find Bill to get yours.

If you want to meet with Bill, send an e-mail to BenchmarkXPRTsupport@principledtechnologies.com. You can also DM us on Twitter at @BenchmarkXPRT.

We hope to see you there!

Eric

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Posted in BatteryXPRT 2014 for Android, CES, Collaborative benchmark development, Community Preview, Mobile World Congress, TouchXPRT 2014 |

TouchXPRT CP1

By Eric Hale

on January 30, 2014

This week we released the TouchXPRT 2014 Community Preview 1 (CP1). As with past community previews, the tests are stable and you may publish your results.

CP1 has a number of improvements over TouchXPRT 2013. We’ve updated the tests and used new and more demanding kinds of data. The Run All button is now prominent on the main screen, and the benchmark includes a results viewer.

However, as I said last week, the new UI design did not make it into CP1. Over the next few weeks, we’ll be working to give TouchXPRT an exciting new look. The results viewer will also change a lot. The current version captures the date, time, and test results, but the sandbox environment of Windows 8 applications makes getting the system information challenging. We’re working to solve that problem. We’ll also be improving the results submission to make it more streamlined.

Rest assured that, while the appearance will change, the results will not. The test results you generate with CP1 will be good for the life of the benchmark.

Community previews are only available to community members. If you are not a member, this a great time to join.

After you’ve downloaded CP1, let us know what you think by posting to the forum or e-mailing us at BenchmarkXPRTsupport@principledtechnologies.com.

Eric

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Posted in Collaborative benchmark development, Community Preview, TouchXPRT 2014, TouchXPRT development process, Windows 8 |

It’s almost here

By Eric Hale

on January 23, 2014

Sometime next week, we plan to release a sneak preview of TouchXPRT 2014, the TouchXPRT 2014 Community Preview 1 (CP1).

CP1, as its name makes clear, is not the final TouchXPRT 2014 release. There is still a lot of work to do on the user interface and the new results viewer. However, it includes a number of improvements over the current TouchXPRT, making it an even more useful tool for measuring Windows 8 and Windows 8.1 device performance. It is also a great way for everyone in the community to see the current state of our thinking and to provide us with feedback. You can run this version of the tool and see what you think!

As we have done with previous community previews, we’re also taking two more steps:

We’re not putting any publication restrictions on this preview release. Test at will, and publish your findings.
We’re releasing the source code to all community members. If you’re curious about not just what we’re doing but how we’re doing it, you can find out.

We believe these steps make the tool easier to evaluate and more useful to all of us.

Releasing a preview version is a lot of work, because we have to do much of the work of a software release and on less-than-final code, but we believe the value to our community justifies the effort.

Next week, when we release CP1, I’ll go over more details, the known limitations, and how you can get us your feedback—feedback we very much want.

Between now and then, we’ll be readying CP1 for your use.

Eric

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Posted in Collaborative benchmark development, Community Preview, TouchXPRT, TouchXPRT 2014, TouchXPRT release cycle, Windows 8, Windows 8.1 |

Category: TouchXPRT 2014

More grease, more tracks

MWC is coming

TouchXPRT CP1

It’s almost here

Check out the other XPRTs: