14 DAY TRIAL // According to a report, the recently launched OnePlus 5 smartphone is cheating in benchmarks as the Chinese smartphone manufacturer is once again accused by the XDA Developers website of "inappropriately manipulating benchmark scores."
OnePlus is not the first, nor the last mobile device manufacturer to include CPU boosters inside the review units they send to various media outlets. Four years ago, Samsung, LG, HTC, and ASUS were all caught tweaking their review units to deliver better test scores in benchmarks, but for OnePlus it appears that this is the second time this year that they're accused of cheating in benchmarks.
After some more in-depth analysis, XDA Developers' author Mario Tomás Serrafero discovered that the OnePlus 5 review unit they received from OnePlus is grossly cheating at benchmarks. How does it work? It's quite very simple actually, the manufacturer includes a cheating mechanism that's specifically destined to increase the performance of the device when benchmarking apps are detected.
OnePlus says that they just want to show the full potential of the device
XDA Developers have contacted OnePlus in regards to this, and it looks like the Chinese smartphone manufacturer did not deny that their OnePlus 5 review units include some sort of cheating mechanism. The company's reply was that they didn't overclock the device but instead show the world the full potential of the device. That sounds just great, but, unfortunately, that's not what regular Android users want to see when they read a review of a newly launched device they might purchase.
"People use benchmark apps in order to ascertain the performance of their device, and we want users to see the true performance of the OnePlus 5. Therefore, we have allowed benchmark apps to run in a state similar to daily usage, including the running of resource intensive apps and games. Additionally, when launching apps the OnePlus 5 runs at a similar state in order to increase the speed in which apps open. We are not overclocking the device, rather we are displaying the performance potential of the OnePlus 5," says OnePlus.
Additionally, OnePlus co-founder Carl Pei responds to the XDA Developers story on Reddit, saying "We have made it so that when running benchmark apps, the phone performs the same as when running resource intensive apps such as 3D games." In the conclusion of their report, XDA Developers said they are disappointed with OnePlus’ actions in this matter, hoping for the mobile device manufacturer to remove the benchmark cheating code from their software as it misrepresents the OnePlus 5 smartphone to their customers.