Category: TouchXPRT results

TouchXPRT: a great tool for evaluating Windows performance

on April 4, 2019

From time to time, we remember that some XPRT users have experience with only one or two of the benchmark tools in our portfolio. They might have bookmarked a link to WebXPRT they found in a tech review or copied the HDXPRT installer package from a flash drive in their lab, but are unaware of other members of the XPRT family that could be useful to them. To spread the word on the range of capabilities the XPRTs offer, we occasionally highlight one of the XPRT tools in the blog . Last week, we discussed CrXPRT, a benchmark for evaluating the performance and battery life of Chrome OS devices. Today, we focus on TouchXPRT, our app for evaluating the performance of Windows 10 devices.

While our first benchmark, HDXPRT, is a great tool for assessing how well Windows machines handle media creation tasks using real commercial applications, it’s simply too large to run on most Windows tablets, 2-in-1s, and laptops with limited memory. To test those devices, we developed the latest version of TouchXPRT as a Universal Windows Platform app. As a Windows app, installing TouchXPRT is easy and quick (about 15 minutes). It runs five tests that simulate common photo, video, and music editing tasks; measures how quickly the device completes each of those tasks; and provides an overall score. It takes about 15 minutes to run on most devices. Labs can also automate testing using the command line or a script.

Want to run TouchXPRT?

Download TouchXPRT from the Microsoft Store or from TouchXPRT.com. The TouchXPRT 2016 release notes provide step-by-step instructions. To compare device scores, go to the TouchXPRT 2016 results page, where you’ll find scores from many Windows 10 devices.

Want 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 the community today. There’s no obligation and membership is free for members of any company or organization with an interest in benchmarks.

If you’ve been looking for a Windows performance evaluation tool that’s easy to use and has the flexibility of a UWP app, give TouchXPRT a try and let us know what you think!

Justin

Posted in Battery life, Benchmark metrics, Benchmarking, BenchmarkXPRT, BenchmarkXPRT development community, Chrome OS, CrXPRT, HDXPRT, Performance benchmarking, TouchXPRT, TouchXPRT 2016, TouchXPRT release cycle, TouchXPRT results, WebXPRT, Windows 10 | Tagged 2-in-1, CrXPRT, HDXPRT, laptop, PC, Performance, tablet, TouchXPRT, WebXPRT, Windows 10 |

New opportunities for TouchXPRT

By Justin Greene

on March 29, 2018

Next week’s XPRT Weekly Tech Spotlight will feature a unique device: the HP Envy x2 2-in-1. The first device of its kind on the market, the Envy x2 runs Windows 10 on ARM hardware—in this case, a Qualcomm Snapdragon 835 platform. ASUS and Lenovo will release similar devices in the coming months. Using the ARM chips found in many flagship phones, these devices aim to power robust operating systems on 2-in-1s and laptops while providing extended battery life and always-on LTE connections.

These new devices bring ample opportunities for benchmarking. Consumers will want to know about potential trade-offs between price, power, and battery life—incentivizing tech reviewers to dive into the details and provide useful data points. But for the new Windows on ARM systems, the usual benchmarks have presented challenges. Many traditional laptop benchmarks just won’t work on the new systems. TouchXPRT, however, works like a charm.

TouchXPRT assesses performance on any Windows device. Since it’s a Universal Windows Platform (UWP) app that runs on both x86 and ARM systems, it can evaluate how well a Windows device running on ARM hardware performs compared to traditional laptops and 2-in-1s. It’s easy to install, takes about 15 minutes to run, and you can download it directly from TouchXPRT.com or install it from the Microsoft Store. Labs can also automate testing using the command line or a script.

If you’ve been looking for a Windows performance evaluation tool that’s easy to use and has the flexibility of a UWP app, give TouchXPRT a try. Read more details about TouchXPRT here, and please don’t hesitate to contact us with any questions you may have.

Justin

Posted in Benchmark metrics, Benchmarking, Mobile devices, TouchXPRT, TouchXPRT 2016, TouchXPRT results, Windows 10 |

Getting to know TouchXPRT

By Justin Greene

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:

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 |

Detective work

By Justin Greene

on January 21, 2016

A few weeks ago, we described an issue with TouchXPRT’s Create Slideshow test. On some systems, this test would take longer than expected to complete due to the output video not rendering correctly. Since then, we released TouchXPRT 2016 CP2, which includes a check that verifies the output and reports an error if there’s a problem.

It took a lot of detective work, but I’m happy to say that we’ve been able to resolve this issue. We had to make a couple of changes. First, we changed the pixel format in which the photo content is read from GUID_WICPixelFormat32bppPBGRA to GUID_WICPixelFormat32bppBGR. Second, we changed the media format of the input into the video converter from MFVideoFormat_ARGB32 to MFVideoFormat_RGB32.

After making these changes, the Create Slideshow test ran in the expected amount of time, and rendered the output video correctly.

In our testing so far, results have not changed noticeably. However, we’re continuing to test. We want to be sure that the updated build is stable and that results are comparable to earlier TouchXPRT CPs. We’ll then release it to the community.

Here’s looking forward to the release of TouchXPRT 2016 to the world at large!

Posted in BenchmarkXPRT development community, TouchXPRT, TouchXPRT 2016, TouchXPRT development process, TouchXPRT release cycle, TouchXPRT results, Windows 10 |

Diversity

By Eric Hale

on November 7, 2013

Fall is beautiful in North Carolina. The temperature is dropping. The leaves are changing color, making the hills scarlet and orange. And, of course, the stores have been decorated for Christmas since Halloween.

As we head into the biggest shopping season of the year, it’s a great time to be getting XPRT results from the hottest devices. In the last few weeks, we’ve published results from

tablets such as the Apple iPad Air, Google Nexus 7 2, and both the Microsoft Surface 2 and Microsoft Surface Pro 2
phones such as the Apple iPhone 5c, Apple iPhone 5s, and LG G2
devices you might not have expected, such as the Amazon Kindle Fire HDX, Barnes and Noble Nook HD+, and NVIDIA Shield

The diversity of devices is nice to see. The results come from PT testing, the press, and benchmark users. Note that you don’t have to be a community member to submit results. The person who submitted the MobileXPRT Nook HD+ results was not a member. If you’ve tested something interesting, send the results on!

Eric

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Posted in BenchmarkXPRT, BenchmarkXPRT development community, MobileXPRT, Performance testing on tablets, Touch-based computing, Touch-based devices, TouchXPRT, TouchXPRT results |

The Microsoft Surface 2

By Eric Hale

on October 24, 2013

As soon as the Microsoft Surface 2 became available, we got one and have been putting it through its paces. Of course, we ran WebXPRT and TouchXPRT. The results are on the TouchXPRT and WebXPRT sites, but I’ll repeat them here along with the results for its predecessor, the Microsoft Surface RT.

	TouchXPRT	WebXPRT
Surface RT	98	167
Surface 2	284	324

TouchXPRT shows the Surface 2 to be almost three times faster than the Microsoft Surface RT, while WebXPRT shows it to be almost twice as fast.

Why the difference? The most obvious explanation is that WebXPRT depends on the browser and its implementations of JavaScript and HTML5. TouchXPRT relies less on additional software and seems to take better advantage of the underlying hardware.

While we have yet to test the Intel Core i5-based Microsoft Surface Pro 2 ourselves, others have been doing so. Interestingly, Anandtech’s review of the Surface Pro 2 included WebXPRT results from both Chrome and IE. The Chrome result was over 30 percent higher than the IE result: 1,260 vs. 960. Unfortunately, Google has not made Chrome available for the ARM-based Surface 2, so we were not able to make that comparison.

As always, please let us know any results you get on any new hardware so we can get as many results as possible in our result databases. There are lots of new products coming out in the next few weeks and we’d love your help in getting results for as many of them as possible. Thanks!

Eric

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Posted in BenchmarkXPRT, BenchmarkXPRT development community, Performance testing on tablets, Touch-based computing, Touch-based devices, TouchXPRT, TouchXPRT results, WebXPRT, Windows 8.1 |

Category: TouchXPRT results

TouchXPRT: a great tool for evaluating Windows performance

Want to run TouchXPRT?

Want to dig into the details?

New opportunities for TouchXPRT

Getting to know TouchXPRT

If you’d like to run TouchXPRT:

If you’d like to dig into the details:

Detective work

Diversity

The Microsoft Surface 2

Check out the other XPRTs: