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Category: Windows 10

TouchXPRT 2016 Community Preview 2 is available

Today we are releasing TouchXPRT 2016 Community Preview 2 (CP 2). As we discussed in the blog, some systems with newer AMD graphics drivers have trouble rendering the Create Slideshow from Photos output video. CP 2 includes a validation feature that produces an error when this problem occurs. This is the only change from the first community preview.

As with all community previews, TouchXPRT 2016 CP 2 is available only to community members. Members may download the preview from the TouchXPRT tab in the Members’ Area.

For more details about TouchXPRT 2016, please consult the release notes for further details (login required).

After you try out CP 2, please send us your comments. Either post them to the forum or mail them to BenchmarkXPRTsupport@principledtechnologies.com. If you send us information that’s relevant to the entire community, we may post an anonymous version of your comments to the forum.

Thanks for your participation!

The TouchXPRT 2016 Community Preview is here!

Today we are releasing the TouchXPRT 2016 Community Preview (CP). TouchXPRT 2016 includes the same performance workloads as TouchXPRT 2014, but we have rebuilt it as a Universal Windows app. This makes TouchXPRT 2016 compatible with systems running Windows 10 and Windows 10 Mobile.

Because this is a community preview, it is available only to community members. Members may download the preview from the TouchXPRT tab in the Members’ Area.

The results viewer in the TouchXPRT 2016 CP is not fully functional. Please consult the release notes for further details (login required).

After you try out the CP, please send your comments. Either post them to the forum or mail them to BenchmarkXPRTsupport@principledtechnologies.com. If you send us information that’s relevant to the entire community, we may post an anonymous version of your comments to the forum.

Thanks for your participation!

The TouchXPRT 2016 CP arrives tomorrow!

As we said a couple of weeks ago, we wanted to test on Windows 10 Threshold 2 before releasing the TouchXPRT 2016 community preview. Well, Threshold 2 is out and the testing has been going very well.

TouchXPRT2016_CP

We’ll release the TouchXPRT 2016 to the community tomorrow. Because community previews are not available to the general public, members will need to download it from our site.

The installation procedure is fairly straightforward. First, you put the device in developer mode. Then, for a tablet or PC, run a PowerShell script, as you did for TouchXPRT 2014. For a mobile device, once it’s in developer mode, copy the bundle to the device and install it.

If you have any problems, please let us know.

We’re looking forward to seeing the results from phones and, as we have done with MobileXPRT, to comparing results across different-sized devices.

Enjoy!

Eric

An update on TouchXPRT 2016

We’ll be releasing the MobileXPRT 2015 white paper tomorrow. It contains lots of information about MobileXPRT 2015 that you won’t find anywhere else. We hope you’ll find it very informative.

A couple of weeks ago, we released the design document for TouchXPRT 2016 (login required). This week, we put the first build of TouchXPRT 2016 into testing. It’s a Universal Windows app that runs on Windows 10 tablets, PCs, and phones. This means that TouchXPRT can now run on a wider variety of devices. However, it also means that TouchXPRT 2016 will not be backward compatible with Windows 8 and 8.1.

Given the current state of the SDKs, installing the test builds on phones is more complicated than we would like. We’re looking into ways to simplify the install before releasing the community preview. Testing on phones is particularly important because we made many of the UI changes to enable TouchXPRT to work acceptably on a small display.

We’ll keep you informed as testing proceeds. We’re hoping to release the community preview in the next couple of weeks.

Eric

We’ve been thinking

Last week, we released the community preview for MobileXPRT 2015, and things are looking great. We anticipate a general release next week, probably on the 28th. Many thanks to the community members who are making this preview a success.

Of course, MobileXPRT isn’t the only thing we’ve been working on. Development of TouchXPRT 2016 is in full swing. As we noted in an earlier blog, Microsoft did not release the Windows 10 SDK until the end of July, but this delay has been a bit of a blessing in disguise. The extra time has allowed us to consider additional ways to improve TouchXPRT. As always, we want to hear the community’s input, so please send any comments or suggestions our way. We’ll add them to our ideas and publish a design document in the next couple of weeks.

Like the XPRT previews, the design document is only available to members of the BenchmarkXPRT Development Community. If you’re wondering what membership entails, this video will show you everything you want to know.

Eric

What’s in a name?

A couple of weeks ago, the Notebookcheck German site published a review of the Huawei P8lite. We were pleased to see they used WebXPRT 2015, and the P8 Lite got an overall score of 47. This week, AnandTech published their review of the Huawei P8lite. In their review, the P8lite got an overall score of 59!

Those scores are very different, but it was not difficult to figure out why. The P8lite comes in two versions, depending on your market. The version Notebookcheck used is based on HiSilicon’s Kirin 620, while the version AnandTech used was Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 615 SoC. It’s also worth noting that the phone Notebookcheck tested was running Android 5.0, while the phone AnandTech tested was running Android 4.4. With different hardware and different operating systems, it’s no surprise that the results were different.

One consequence of the XPRTs being used across the world is that is that it is not uncommon to see results from devices in different markets. As we’ve said before, many things can influence benchmark results, so don’t assume that two devices with the same name are identical.

Kudos to both AnandTech and Notebookcheck for their care in presenting the system information for the devices in their reviews. The AnandTech review even included a brief description of the two models of the P8lite. This type of information is essential for helping people make informed decisions.

In other news, Windows 10 launched yesterday. We’re looking forward to seeing the TouchXPRT and WebXPRT results!

Eric

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