14 DAY TRIAL // Samsung Galaxy Note 3, the latest handset from the South Korean mobile phone maker, is a powerful device, capable of delivering appealing results in benchmarks, tough it seems that all might be only the result of some software tweaks.
To be more precise, the 2.3GHz Snapdragon 800-based Galaxy Note 3 was found to be performing far better than other devices powered by the same processor, which raised a series of question marks.
Several months ago, Samsung was caught red-handed tweaking the performance capabilities of Galaxy S4 to deliver better benchmarking results, and the same appears to be happening with Galaxy Note 3.
According to ArsTechnica, a special, high-power CPU mode appears to be kicking in on Galaxy Note 3 when benchmarking applications are launched on it, just like on Galaxy S4 before it.
However, the news site notes that Samsung used to do this only for the international version of Galaxy S4, but that it included the same software tweak inside the US version Galaxy Note 3.
Apparently, Galaxy Note 3 idles normally when no benchmarking app is launched on it. Basically, this means that three of its four cores are shut down, and that only one of them runs, at the lowest possible speed.
However, as soon as the app is launched, despite the fact that no testing is in progress, all cores become active, at low speeds.
When launching the test, the handset would have all four cores kick in at 2.3GHz, the fastest speed they can achieve. None of the cores is allowed to idle during the test.
However, when tested with the same benchmarking app that has had its package renamed so that the device would no longer recognize it as a testing app, Galaxy Note 3 performed normally, as it should have.
The difference between the two benchmarking results is of around 20 percent. In fact, it appears that the lower results show the actual power of the device, given that they are on par with those delivered by LG G2, which features exactly the same processor inside.
After some digging, ArsTechnica discovered that Galaxy Note 3 included code that was specifically destined to turn the processor to higher speeds when a benchmarking app was launched. The GPU is also believed to be boosted for this kind of testing, based on the unveiled strings of code.