14 DAY TRIAL // Huawei's new phones have been delisted from UL's best smartphones list after the company (maker of the 3DMark mobile benchmark) found out from an independent test performed by Anandtech that the Chinese company is trying to boost the scores for its new line of smartphones.
As specified in UL's statement, the delisted Huawei models are the P20 Pro, the Nova 3, the Honor Play, and the P20, the last one after getting news of AnandTech's report.
More precisely, according to Anandtech's report, the Huawei Honor Play smartphone model presented bizarre benchmark results during performance and power testing when compared to other models tested earlier this year.
According to their tests, the Honor Play might have a built-in benchmark mode detection mechanism that can automatically enable a far greater upper power limit for its SoC (system on a chip) giving a power boost while being benchmarked and a distinct (unfair) advantage against competing smartphone models.
After hearing about Anandtech's findings, 3DMark's maker also tested the new Huawei phones using both the public benchmark app from the Google Play store and an internal, private version, thus finding out that the new Huawei lineup scored "up to 47% higher than the scored from the private app."
Huawei's phones still to appear in best smartphones list, unranked
Furthermore, it's now apparent that instead of adapting to the workload, as they were allowed by the benchmark's rules, Huawei's new smartphones will enter a power mode designed explicitly for benchmarks to be able to create performance power peaks that would boost the phones at the top of the rankings.
"After testing the devices in our own lab and confirming that they breach our rules, we have decided to delist the affected models and remove them from our performance rankings," UL said in their public statement.
However, although removed from the rankings, Huawei's phones will still be present at the bottom of UL's best smartphones list, unranked and with no scores.
When contacted by UL, Huawei said that they are "planning to provide users with access to “Performance Mode” so they can use the maximum power of their device when they need to."
At the moment, Huawei is seen leading Apple in terms of market share through the second quarter of 2018 according to IDC.