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Tag Archives: Chromebooks

A note about CrXPRT 2

Justin Greene
By Justin Greene
on August 31, 2023

Recent visitors to CrXPRT.com may have seen a notice that encourages visitors to use WebXPRT 4 instead of CrXPRT 2 for performance testing on high-end Chromebooks. The notice reads as follows:

NOTE: Chromebook technology has progressed rapidly since we released CrXPRT 2, and we’ve received reports that some CrXPRT 2 workloads may not stress top-bin Chromebook processors enough to give the necessary accuracy for users to compare their performance. So, for the latest test to compare the performance of high-end Chromebooks, we recommend using WebXPRT 4.

We made this recommendation because of the evident limitations of the CrXPRT 2 performance workloads when testing newer high-end hardware. CrXPRT 2 itself is not that old (2020), but when we created the CrXPRT 2 performance workloads, we started with a core framework of CrXPRT 2015 performance workloads. In a similar way, we built the CrXPRT 2015 workloads on a foundation of WebXPRT 2015 workloads. At the time, the harness and workload structures we used to ensure WebXPRT 2015’s cross-browser capabilities provided an excellent foundation that we could adapt for our new ChromeOS benchmark. Consequently, CrXPRT 2 is a close developmental descendant of WebXPRT 2015. Some of the legacy WebXPRT 2015/CrXPRT 2 workloads do not stress current high-end processors—a limitation that prevents effective performance testing differentiation—nor do they engage the latest web technologies.

In the past, the Chromebook market skewed heavily toward low-cost devices with down-bin, inexpensive processors, making this limitation less of an issue. Now, however, more Chromebooks offer top-bin processors on par with traditional laptops and workstations. Because of the limitations of the CrXPRT 2 workloads, we now recommend WebXPRT 4 for both cross-browser and ChromeOS performance testing on the latest high-end Chromebooks. WebXPRT 4 includes updated test content, newer JavaScript tools and libraries, modern WebAssembly workloads, and additional Web Workers tasks that cover a wide range of performance requirements.

While CrXPRT 2 continues to function as a capable performance and battery life comparison test for many ChromeOS devices, WebXPRT 4 is a more appropriate tool to use with new high-end devices. If you haven’t yet used WebXPRT 4 for Chromebook comparison testing, we encourage you to give it a try!

If you have any questions or concerns about CrXPRT 2 or WebXPRT 4, please don’t hesitate to ask!

Justin

Posted in battery life, benchmark, Benchmark metrics, Benchmarking, browser performance, Chrome OS, Chromebooks, CrXPRT, Google Chrome, History of benchmarking, HTML5, JavaScript, Laptops, Performance benchmarking, WebAssembly, WebXPRT, WebXPRT 2015, WebXPRT 4 | Also tagged , , , , , , , , ,

An update on Chrome OS XPRT benchmark development

Justin Greene
By Justin Greene
on September 15, 2022

In July, we discussed the Chrome OS team’s decision to end support for Chrome apps, and how that will prevent us from publishing any future fixes or updates for CrXPRT 2. We also announced our goal of beginning development of an all-new Chrome OS XPRT benchmark by the end of this year. While we are actively discussing this benchmark and researching workload technologies and scenarios, we don’t foresee releasing a preview build this year.

The good news is that, in spite of a lack of formal support from the Chrome OS team, the CrXPRT 2 performance and battery life tests currently run without any known issues. We continue to monitor the status of CrXPRT and will inform our blog readers of any significant changes.

If you have any questions about CrXPRT, or ideas about the types of features or workloads you’d like to see in a new Chrome OS benchmark, please let us know!

Justin

Posted in battery life, benchmark, Chrome OS, Chromebooks, Chromium, CrXPRT, Google Chrome, Performance benchmarking | Also tagged , , , ,

XPRT possibilities with ChromeOS Flex

Justin Greene
By Justin Greene
on August 25, 2022

Recently, Tom’s Guide published an interesting article about how they used ChromeOS Flex to turn a ten-year-old Apple MacBook Pro into a functioning Chromebook by replacing the laptop’s macOS operating system with ChromeOS. ChromeOS Flex is a free Google tool that allows users to create a bootable USB drive that they can then use to install ChromeOS on a wide variety of hardware platforms that traditionally run other operating systems such as macOS or Windows. Because ChromeOS is a cloud-first, relatively low-overhead operating system, the ChromeOS Flex option could breathe new life into an old laptop that you have lying around.

Never having encountered a MacBook Pro with ChromeOS, we were interested to learn about Tom’s experience running XPRT benchmarks in this new environment. WebXPRT 4, WebXPRT 3, and the CrXPRT 2 performance test apparently ran without any issues, but we have not yet seen a CrXPRT 2 battery life result from a ChromeOS Flex environment. We plan to experiment with this soon.

We were happy to publish the results on our site, and will consider any ChromeOS Flex results we receive for publication. If you submit results from ChromeOS Flex testing, we ask that you use the “Additional information” field in the results submission form to clarify that you ran the tests in a ChromeOS Flex environment. This will prevent any possible confusion when we see a submission that lists a traditional macOS or Windows hardware platform along with a ChromeOS version number.

Do you have experience running CrXPRT or WebXPRT with ChromeOS Flex? We’d love to hear about it!

Justin

Posted in Apple, Battery life, Chrome OS, Chromebooks, CrXPRT, Google Chrome, Laptops, Performance benchmarking, results, results submission, WebXPRT, WebXPRT 4, Windows | Also tagged , , , , , , , ,

The XPRTs can help with your back-to-school shopping

Justin Greene
By Justin Greene
on August 4, 2022

The new school year is upon us, and learners of all ages are looking for tech devices that have the capabilities they will need in the coming year. The tech marketplace can be confusing, and competing claims can be hard to navigate. The XPRTs are here to help! Whether you’re shopping for a new phone, tablet, Chromebook, laptop, or desktop, the XPRTs can provide reliable, industry-trusted performance scores that can cut through all the noise.

A good place to start looking for scores is the WebXPRT 4 results viewer. The viewer displays WebXPRT 4 scores from over 175 devices—including many hot new releases—and we’re adding new scores all the time. To learn more about the viewer’s capabilities and how you can use it to compare devices, check out this blog post.

Another resource we offer is the XPRT results browser. The browser is the most efficient way to access the XPRT results database, which currently holds more than 3,000 test results from over 120 sources, including major tech review publications around the world, OEMs, and independent testers. It offers a wealth of current and historical performance data across all of the XPRT benchmarks and hundreds of devices. You can read more about how to use the results browser here.

Also, if you’re considering a popular device, chances are good that a recent tech review includes an XPRT score for that device. Two quick ways to find these reviews: (1) go to your favorite tech review site and search for “XPRT” and (2) go to a search engine and enter the device name and XPRT name (e.g., “Apple MacBook Air” and “WebXPRT”). Here are a few recent tech reviews that use one of the XPRTs to evaluate a popular device:

The XPRTs can help consumers make better-informed and more confident tech purchases. As this school year begins, we hope you’ll find the data you need on our site or in an XPRT-related tech review. If you have any questions about the XPRTs, XPRT scores, or the results database please feel free to ask!

Justin

Posted in Apple, benchmark, Benchmark metrics, Browser-based benchmarks, Chromebooks, CrXPRT, Education, Laptops, Mobile devices, Performance benchmarking, Phones, results, Tablets, WebXPRT, WebXPRT 3, WebXPRT 4 | Also tagged , , , , , , , , , , ,

An update on Chrome OS support for CrXPRT

Justin Greene
By Justin Greene
on July 14, 2022

In March, we discussed the Chrome OS team’s plan to end support for Chrome apps in June and instead focus their efforts on Chrome extensions and Progressive Web Apps. After receiving feedback on their published timeline, the Chrome OS team decided to extend Chrome app support for Enterprise and Education account customers through January 2025. Because we publish our Chrome app (CrXPRT) through a private BenchmarkXPRT developer account, and because we have not seen any further updates to the support timeline, we don’t assume that the support extension will apply to CrXPRT.

Since June has come and gone, and the support extension probably does not apply to our account, we do not expect to be able to publish any future fixes or updates for CrXPRT. As of now, and up through Chrome 105, the CrXPRT 2 performance and battery life tests are still working without a hitch. We will continue to run the benchmark on a regular basis to monitor functionality, and we will disclose any future issues here in the blog and on CrXPRT.com. We hope the app will continue to run both performance and battery life tests well into the future. However, given the frequency of Chrome updates, it’s difficult for us to predict how long the benchmark will remain viable.

As we mentioned back in March, we hope to begin development of an all-new Chrome OS XPRT benchmark by the end of this year. We’ll discuss that prospect in more detail in future blog posts, but if you have ideas about the types of features or workloads you’d like to see in a new Chrome OS benchmark, please let us know!

Justin

Posted in Battery life, battery life, benchmark, BenchmarkXPRT, Chrome OS, Chromebooks, Chromium, CrXPRT, Google Chrome | Also tagged , , , , , , ,

XPRTs in the press

Justin Greene
By Justin Greene
on May 12, 2022

Each month, we send a newsletter to members of the BenchmarkXPRT Development Community. In the newsletter, we recap the latest updates from the XPRT world and provide a summary of the previous month’s XPRT-related activity, including uses or mentions of the XPRTs in the tech press. More people read the weekly XPRT blog than receive the monthly newsletter, so we realized that some blog readers may be unaware of the wide variety of tech outlets that regularly use or mention the XPRTs.

So for today’s blog, we want to give readers a sampling of the XPRT press usage we see on a weekly basis. Recent mentions include:

  • Tom’s Guide used HDXPRT 4 to compare the performance of the Geekom Mini IT8 and Dell OptiPlex 7090 Ultra small-form-factor PCs.
  • Intel used WebXPRT 4 test data in promotional material for their line of 12th Gen) Intel Core processors(Alder Lake). Hundreds of press outlets then republished the presentation.
  • AnandTech used WebXPRT 4 to evaluate the Cincoze DS-1300 Industrial PC.
  • ZDNet used CrXPRT 2 in a review titled The best Chromebooks for students: Student-proof laptops.
  • PCWorld used CrXPRT 2 to provide data for an article listing their top Chromebook recommendations.
  • TechPowerUp used WebXPRT 3 to compare the browser performance of Intel Core i9-12900KS processor-based systems and other Intel- and AMD processor-based systems.
  • Other outlets that have published articles, ads, or reviews mentioning the experts in the last few months include: Android Authority, ASUS, BenchLife, Gadgets 360, Good Gear Guide, Hardware.info, Hot Hardware, ITHardware (Poland), ITMedia (Japan), Itndaily (Russia), Mobile01.com (China), Notebookcheck, PCMag, ProClockers, Sohu.com (China), Tom’s Hardware, and Tweakers.

If you don’t currently receive the monthly BenchmarkXPRT newsletter, but would like to join the mailing list, please let us know! We will not publish or sell any of the contact information you provide, and will only send the monthly newsletter and occasional benchmark-related announcements such as patch notifications or new benchmark releases.

Justin

Posted in benchmark, Benchmark metrics, Benchmarking, BenchmarkXPRT, BenchmarkXPRT development community, Chromebooks, Cross-platform benchmarks, CrXPRT, HDXPRT, HDXPRT 4, Performance benchmarking, Performance of computing devices, WebXPRT, WebXPRT 3, webxprt 4 | Also tagged , , , , , , , , ,

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