CrXPRT 2015 FAQ

CrXPRT 2015 is a tool for evaluating the performance and battery life of Chromebooks. CrXPRT tells you how fast a Chromebook handles things you or your kids do every day, like playing video games, watching movies, editing pictures, and doing homework. It even measures battery life. The performance test, which measures the speed of your Chromebook, gives you individual scores for each set of tasks, as well as an overall score. The battery life test produces an estimated battery life expressed in hours and minutes, a separate performance score, and a frames per second (FPS) rate for a built-in HTML5 gaming component.

CrXPRT is easy to use, completes the battery life evaluation in half a workday, and delivers results you can understand. When you buy a Chromebook, it’s important to know how long it will last on a normal day and how often you’ll need to charge it. Before, you had to rely on the manufacturer’s estimate; now, CrXPRT 2015 provides an easy, objective tool that accounts for daily activity and network connectivity as it measures battery life.

CrXPRT 2015 is part of the larger BenchmarkXPRT family of tools, or XPRTs, a set of apps that help you learn how all kinds of devices perform. In the tech biz, many people refer to these tools as “benchmarks”. The XPRTs test a wide range of devices on a level playing field, which means you can be sure you’re getting unbiased, fair information. We encourage you to explore all the tools at BenchmarkXPRT.

CrXPRT 2015 runs tests on your Chromebook to tell you two things:

• Battery Life: Your device’s estimated battery life, measured in time.
• Performance: How well your device handles some common tasks. This is a relative number, which you use to compare it with performance scores from other devices on CrXPRT.com.

CrXPRT’s performance score is modeled in part after the industry-standard WebXPRT app, which you can read about here. Running the CrXPRT specialized workloads serves two purposes: measuring battery life and providing you with a performance score. If you want to get a sense of how well a device handles everyday tasks, this is the score to look for.

To estimate battery life, CrXPRT 2015 only needs to run for three-and-a-half hours, but if you want to experiment, you can increase the number of times the 30-minute test runs – up to and including a full rundown, when you run the test until the battery dies. Older battery life tests required a full rundown, so the ability to test in less than four hours is a huge improvement.

For more information on how CrXPRT 2015 can estimate battery life in less than four hours, community members can read the design document. We’re also working on a public white paper that will explain all the details. And, of course, if you have any questions, you can always contact us at BenchmarkXPRTsupport@principledtechnologies.com.

Technology manufacturers, developers, sellers, reviewers, and consumers find what they need here. CrXPRT is a great resource for anyone who wants to explore the battery life and performance capabilities of Chromebooks.

You can download CrXPRT from the Chrome Web Store. CrXPRT is free, and download and installation typically takes about five minutes.

The CrXPRT User Manual provides detailed instructions for device configuration and testing. The user manual is also available inside the CrXPRT UI, just click the Help link at the bottom of the main screen.

It runs these seven scenarios:

1. Photo Effects:
   Applies three effects (Sharpen, Emboss, and Glow) to two photos each, a set of six photos total.
2. Face Detection JS:
   Checks for human faces in a set of five photos (low resolution).
3. Offline Notes:
   Measures the time it takes to encrypt, store, and display notes from local storage.
4. Stock Portfolio Dashboard:
   Calculates and displays different graphical views of a stock portfolio.
5. DNA Sequence Analysis:
   Measures the time it takes to process eight DNA sequences for open reading frames and amino acids.
6. 3D Shapes with WebGL:
   Generates equation-based 3D shapes and displays them with WebGL.
7. Photo Collage using PNaCl:
   Applies the Sharpen effect to four photos and combines them into a collage (high resolution).

The battery-life test includes all seven workloads from the performance suite, plus adds realistic periods of wait time and three additional scenarios:

1. Video Player:
   Plays a 2-minute 1,080p H.264 video clip in a browser from the local system.
2. Music Player:
   Plays an audio clip for 3 minutes.
3. HTML5-based game:
   Runs an impact.js-based game for about 2 minutes.

When the test completes, click the Submit Result button on the result screen. Fill in a contact email address, the device name and model number, and any additional information you’d like to include (the additional information field is optional). Then, click submit.

You can view results for CrXPRT 2015 here. For more detailed information on any set of scores, click the link under the Source column.

Absolutely! You can view results for CrXPRT 2015 here. As more people use the app and submit their results, the bank of results will grow.

The BenchmarkXPRT Development Community is a forum where registered members can contribute to the process of creating and improving benchmarks, including CrXPRT 2015. If you are not currently a community member, we encourage you to join! (And yes, that means you – our community is open to everyone, from software developers to interested consumers.) Not only will you get early releases of future versions of the apps, but you’ll also be able to download the source code (available to members only) and influence the future of the apps. Register now, or for more information, see the BenchmarkXPRT FAQ.

Go to CrXPRT.com or follow us on Twitter and Facebook. We announce breaking news on the BenchmarkXPRT blog (available to everyone) and the BenchmarkXPRT forums (available to members only).