Here we go again: OnePlus and Meizu found to cheat benchmarks

If you have been around this site or the mobile community in general for some time now, then you surely remember the "benchmark cheating" saga. Back in the day, it was a common practice, especially among smaller manufacturers, with a clear preference towards the AnTuTu testing suite. The practice slowly died off in recent years, but a new reseach from the dedicated XDA community has uncovered signs of it in two current flagships - the OnePlus 3T and Meizu Pro 6.

The analysis mostly focuses on the fourth generation "flagship killer" and while cheating might be a bit too harsh for what OnePlus is doing, there are a few things to be said about the phone's benchmark results.

XDA's investigation into core speeds and thermal throttling is truly in-depth but here's the quick rundown. The OnePlus 3T detects certain benchmark apps and switches over to a more aggressive CPU governor to keep clock speeds higher for longer.

Unlike some other cheating schemes of the past, this essentially only means that OnePlus is deliberately trying to squeeze every last bit of performance out of the device. We suppose this is somewhat more acceptable, especially since OnePlus was quick with its response to the issues, even offering a promise to patch it in future OxygenOS builds on both the OnePlus 3 and 3T.

We aren't completely ready to let OnePlus off the hook by referring to the behavior as a special high-performance mode, implemented for general use with high-intensity apps. The XDA guys were able to accurately shine a light on the variance in reported performance scores with modified APK packages. This suggests a targeted attempt at fooling a specific list of apps, rather than simply offering a boost-mode.

A quick glance at our test database, comparing the OnePlus 3T to devices like the Xiaomi Mi Mix and Xiaomi Mi 5s Plus, both using the same higher clock Snapdragon 821, does show some notable variances. AnTuTu 6 shows a whooping 10,000 points difference and it's now a bit easier to explain it.

GeekBench 4 (multi-core)

Higher is better

• OnePlus 3T
  4364
• Xiaomi Mi 5s Plus
  4333
• Xiaomi Mi Mix
  4288

GeekBench 4 (single-core)

Higher is better

• OnePlus 3T
  1890
• Xiaomi Mi Mix
  1815
• Xiaomi Mi 5s Plus
  1815

AnTuTu 6

Higher is better

• OnePlus 3T
  165097
• Xiaomi Mi 5s Plus
  155185
• Xiaomi Mi Mix
  133242

Hopefully, this doesn't spark a new wave of cheating in the mobile realm, as it definitely belongs in the past.

Source | Via