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Tag Archives: open development

Gain a deeper understanding of WebXPRT 4 with our results calculation white paper

More people around the world are using WebXPRT 4 now than ever before. It’s exciting to see that growth, which also means that many people are visiting our site and learning about the XPRTs for the first time. Because new visitors may not know how the XPRT family of benchmarks differs from other benchmarking efforts, we occasionally like to revisit the core values of our open development community here in the blog—and show how those values translate into more free resources for you.

One of our primary values is transparency in all our benchmark development and testing processes. We share information about our progress with XPRT users throughout the development process, and we invite people to contribute ideas and feedback along the way. We also publish both the source code of our benchmarks and detailed information about how they work, unlike benchmarks that use a “black box” model.

For WebXPRT 4 users who are interested in knowing more about the nuts and bolts of the benchmark, we offer several information-packed resources, including our focus for today, the WebXPRT 4 results calculation and confidence interval white paper. The white paper explains the WebXPRT 4 confidence interval, how it differs from typical benchmark variability, and the formulas the benchmark uses to calculate the individual workload scenario scores and overall score on the end-of-test results screen. The paper also provides an overview of the statistical methodology that WebXPRT uses to translate raw timings into scores.

In addition to the white paper’s discussion of the results calculation process, we’ve also provided a results calculation spreadsheet that shows the raw data from a sample test run and reproduces the calculations WebXPRT uses to generate both the workload scores and an overall score.

In potential future versions of WebXPRT, it’s likely that we’ll continue to use the same—or very similar—statistical methodologies and results calculation formulas that we’ve documented in the results calculation white paper and spreadsheet. That said, if you have suggestions for how we could improve those methods or formulas—either in part or in whole—please don’t hesitate to contact us. We’re interested in hearing your ideas!

The white paper is available on WebXPRT.com and on our XPRT white papers page. If you have any questions about the paper or spreadsheet, WebXPRT, or the XPRTs in general, please let us know.

Justin

The MobileXPRT 3 source code is now available

We’re excited to announce that the MobileXPRT 3 source code is now available to BenchmarkXPRT Development Community members!

Download the MobileXPRT 3 source here (login required).

We’ve also posted a download link on the MobileXPRT tab in the Members’ Area, where you will find instructions for setting up and configuring a local instance of MobileXPRT 3.

As part of our community model for software development, source code for each of the XPRTs is available to anyone who joins the community. If you’d like to review XPRT source code, but haven’t yet joined the community, we encourage you to join! Registration is quick and easy, and if you work for a company or organization with an interest in benchmarking, you can join the community for free. Simply fill out the form with your company e-mail address and select the option to be considered for a free membership. We’ll contact you to verify the address and then activate your membership.

If you have any other questions about community membership or XPRT source code, feel free to contact us. We look forward to hearing from you!

Justin

Transparent goals

Recently, Forbes published an article discussing a new report on phone battery life from Which?, a UK consumer advocacy group. In the report, Which? states that they tested the talk time battery life of 50 phones from five brands. During the tests, phones from three of the brands lasted longer than the manufacturers’ claims, while phones from another brand underperformed by about five percent. The fifth brand’s published battery life numbers were 18 to 51 percent higher than Which? recorded in their tests.

Folks can read the article for more details about the tests and the brands. While the report raises some interesting questions, and the article provides readers with brief test methodology descriptions from Which? and one manufacturer, we don’t know enough about the tests to say which set of claims is correct. Any number of variables related to test workloads or device configuration settings could significantly affect the results. Both parties may be using sound benchmarking principles in good faith, but their test methodologies may not be comparable. As it is, we simply don’t have enough information to evaluate the study.

Whether the issue is battery life or any other important device spec, information conflicts, such as the one that the Forbes article highlights, can leave consumers scratching their heads, trying to decide which sources are worth listening to. At the XPRTs, we believe that the best remedy for this type of problem is to provide complete transparency into our testing methodologies and development process. That’s why our lab techs verify all the hardware specs for each XPRT Weekly Tech Spotlight entry. It’s why we publish white papers explaining the structure of our benchmarks in detail, as well as how the XPRTs calculate performance results. It’s also why we employ an open development community model and make each XPRT’s source code available to community members. When we’re open about how we do things, it encourages the kind of honest dialogue between vendors, journalists, consumers, and community members that serves everyone’s best interests.

If you love tech and share that same commitment to transparency, we’d love for you to join our community, where you can access XPRT source code and previews of upcoming benchmarks. Membership is free for anyone with a verifiable corporate affiliation. If you have any questions about membership or the registration process, please feel free to ask.

Justin

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