BenchmarkXPRT Development Community Blog

Ready for your closeup?

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 |

Principled Technologies releases first video series, “Women Coding for Change”

By Eric Hale

on June 7, 2016

DURHAM, NC–(Marketwired – July 07, 2016) – Principled Technologies (PT), which administers the BenchmarkXPRT Development Community, is releasing its first video series, “Women Coding for Change.” The series tells the stories of the XPRT Women Code-a-thon, which the BenchmarkXPRT Development Community co-hosted with ChickTech Seattle in March 2016. These videos shed light on the gender disparity in science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) fields and the growing problems that disparity is causing.

Though women hold the majority of professional jobs in the United States, they represent less than a quarter of software developers. Women are underrepresented in STEM fields from high school through college and into the professional world.

As the second Women Coding for Change video explains, the problem is enormous. By 2020, more than 1.4 million computing-related jobs will be open, and at current graduation rates, the U.S. will not be able to fill them. Training and hiring more women in STEM fields would help bridge that gap.

“The inequalities are staggering, not just in tech,” Jennie Faries said. “It’s getting better, but it is very slow.” Faries, a developer and designer, has had a career in technology for over twenty years and acted as a judge at the XPRT Women Code-a-thon. Faries works for PT, which administers the BenchmarkXPRT Development Community.

For PT, a technology company in the Research Triangle Park region, the issue is close to home.

“We need to recognize that this is a problem for us all: for men, for women, for technology companies, for the economy at large,” said Mark Van Name, co-founder of Principled Technologies. “When a more diverse group of people teams up to build or test products, the products will be better. If we don’t fix this problem, all of us lose.”

The series contains eight videos, which PT will release individually throughout the summer. The first — “Women Coding for Change: Trailer” — offers a sneak peek at the series, while “Women Coding for Change: The Problem” demonstrates the extent of the gender gap.

See the videos on YouTube: facts.pt/coding-for-change-series.

About Principled Technologies, Inc.

Principled Technologies, Inc. is the leading provider of technology marketing and learning & development services.

Principled Technologies, Inc. is located in Durham, North Carolina, USA. For more information, please visit PrincipledTechnologies.com.

Posted in Press Releases |

Getting it right

By Eric Hale

on June 2, 2016

Back in April Bill announced that we are working on a cross-platform benchmark. We asked for your thoughts and comments, and you’ve been great! We really appreciate all the great ideas.

We’ve been using code from MobileXPRT and TouchXPRT as the basis for some experiments. In his post, Bill talked about the difficulty of porting applications. However, even though we have expertise in porting applications, it’s proving more difficult than we originally thought. Benchmarks are held to a higher standard than most applications. It’s not enough for the code to run reliably and efficiently, it must compare the different platforms fairly.

One thing we know for sure: getting it right is going to take a while. However, we owe it to you to make sure that the benchmark is reliable and fair on all platforms it supports. We will, of course, keep you informed as things progress.

In the meantime, keep sending your ideas!
Eric

Posted in Android, Application-based benchmarks, Benchmark metrics, Benchmarking, BenchmarkXPRT development community, Collaborative benchmark development, Future of performance evaluation, iOS, MobileXPRT, Performance benchmarking, TouchXPRT, WebXPRT, Windows 10 |

Windows 10 upgrade?

By Eric Hale

on May 26, 2016

We’ve gotten reports that HDXPRT 2014 no longer works on newer versions of Windows 10. We ran tests in our labs and found that to be true.

At least one user has reported that the problem may be the version of CPU-Z the benchmark uses.

We’re working to track down the problem and hope to provide a workaround in the near future and a more definitive fix (if necessary) later.

Please let us know if you’ve encountered this issue and if you’ve found any ways to work around it.

Eric

Posted in BenchmarkXPRT development community, Collaborative benchmark development, HDXPRT, HDXPRT 2014, HDXPRT capabilities, HDXPRT development process, Performance benchmarking, Windows 10 |

Personal preference

By Eric Hale

on May 19, 2016

I saw an interesting article recently, Here’s why I gave up my beloved Galaxy S7 for a boring old iPhone. It’s only been a few weeks since we featured the Samsung S7 in the XPRT Weekly Tech Spotlight, so of course I had to read it. The interesting thing is this guy really loved his Samsung S7, and even declared it “the best smartphone I’ve ever used.” He loved its VR capabilities, camera, and its look. He even prefers Android as an operating system.

So why would he give it up for an iPhone 6s Plus? Simply put, battery life. As a self-described heavy user, he found his Samsung S7 dying before 5 PM every day. The iPhone 6s Plus lasted much longer.

This is a good reminder that people have different priorities. Your priority could be having the fastest phone, the longest battery life, the best screen, or the broadest compatibility. This is why there is no such this as “the best device.”

This is why we are always asking for your input. Knowing your priorities helps the community build better tests!

Eric

Posted in Android, Battery life, BenchmarkXPRT development community, Collaborative benchmark development, Phones, What makes a good benchmark?, XPRT Weekly Tech Spotlight |

Sleep studies

By Justin Greene

on May 12, 2016

Last week, we discussed the increasing complexity of power options in Android 6.0. Features such as Doze and App Standby have changed the way that the operating system manages app activity, and the wide array of UI skins used by many vendors ensures that the steps needed for pre-test configuration differ considerably from device to device.

Managing Android’s Doze feature is critical to getting a good BatteryXPRT score. To show how involved this process can be, we thought it might be helpful to present the steps for one device. Below my sig are the configuration steps we used for the Huawei Mate 8, which we recently featured in the XPRT Weekly Tech Spotlight. For other phones we’ve tested, the steps have been quite different. We’re working on distilling our experience for our tips and tricks document, and the updated version of the document will be available soon. If you have any useful tips, please let us know.

Justin

Whitelist BatteryXPRT (there are two ways to do this)
1) Access Battery manager from Settings/Advanced settings or from the Phone Manager app on the home screen.
2) Select Protected apps.
3) Use the toggles beside BatteryXPRT and BatteryXPRT Tests to allow them to keep running after the screen turns off.

Configure sleep settings
1) Open Settings from the home screen.
2) Select Display.
3) Select Sleep.
4) Select Never. This may reset to a default setting on its own. In our case, it reset to 10 minutes.

Configure screen lock settings
1) Open Settings from the home screen.
2) Select Advanced settings.
3) Select Security.
4) Scroll to the bottom of the list and use the toggle to turn off Screen lock. This keeps the device screen from locking after standby periods during the test.

Posted in Android M, Android N, Battery life, BatteryXPRT 2014 for Android, Benchmarking, Mobile devices, Power consumption |

Ready for your closeup?

Principled Technologies releases first video series, “Women Coding for Change”

Getting it right

Windows 10 upgrade?

Personal preference

Sleep studies

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