MobileBench Consortium Releases Beta Version of Consumer Test Software for Smartphones

MobileBench, a six-company consortium that’s working to develop uniform "performance assessment tools" for Android smartphones and tablets, used its General Assembly in Shanghai Thursday to release a beta version of new MobileBench testing software for consumer use, the consortium said (http://bit.ly/1rz4nfs). Since being created about a year ago, the consortium has been working on two professional engineering tracks -- the MobileBench platform for overall hardware evaluations of a smartphone or tablet and the MobileBench-UX for testing system-level applications "that address factors affecting the user experience," it said. It touts MobileBench as an "all-in-one solution" that can test the CPU, memory and storage components of a mobile device in different modes. The release of the beta version for consumers is "a major step forward in a collaborative process that will eventually allow consumers to evaluate personal mobile devices on their own," it said. The finished version will be released publicly later in the year "after undergoing an extensive verification process," it said. The consortium plans to expand its membership over the next year, "with the intent of increasing the range and applicability of its evaluation tools," it said. Its six founding companies are Hewlett-Packard, Huawei, Intel, Marvell, OPPO and Samsung Semiconductor.