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Busted: OnePlus, Meizu caught benchmark cheating

Nick PapanikolopoulosFebruary 1, 2017

Well it seems that XDA (and GeekBench) insist on it and have all the necessary evidence to back up their story. According to a latest report the OnePlus 3T and Meizu Pro 6 were some of the models that were found to “cheat” during the benchmarking procedure and now they have to… face the truth.

XDA goes on and describes how the OnePlus 3T managed to trick the bench-marking results: the software has been intentionally tweaked in order to trigger to processor to run more aggressively during the benchmark procedure thus resulting in even better scores.

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As a result, everytime a user used the AnTuTu or Geekbench app the SoC was forced to run at even higher frequency speeds (overclocked) for the whole time, and have great (but false) results. This news however poses one serious question: does the OnePlus 3T really deserve to be ranked as the highest scoring Android smartphone in the world for 2016?nbsp;In case you don’t remember, its score was above 163.000, completely destroying other rivals such as LG G5, Galaxy S7 etc.

OnePlus has been notified of this and made an announcement (basically admitting its guilt):

“In order to give users a better user experience in resource intensive apps and games, especially graphically intensive ones, we implemented certain mechanisms in the community and Nougat builds to trigger the processor to run more aggressively. The trigger process for benchmarking apps will not be present in upcoming OxygenOS builds on the OnePlus 3 and OnePlus 3T.”

We have no info on Meizu’s case so far, but the company has been asked to comment and we’re waiting for their official response.

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About the author

Nick Papanikolopoulos
With some little over 20 years of experience in the Mobile Technology sector Nick is the EIC of Gizchina.com. He has a Masters’ degree in Wireless & Wired Telecommunications, Electrical Engineering and Computer Informatics and a PhD in Mobility QoS Measuring Techniques.
If you'd like to know more you can always follow me on Twitter.

- Wolvie
  February 1, 2017
yalok
February 1, 2017
I wonder if they will just hide the cheating deeper…

Atomicrus
February 1, 2017
I can never understand those haters tellin that One Plus Cheated. Well ok, they overclocked the processor, is it forbidden? This is the processor perfomance installed inside the phone, its performance on higher voltage and not the fake SOC used with edited buildprops and fake hardware naming. All the Intel processor ownres in overclocked mode are fckin cheaters? They are not true to windows perfomance bench and other benchmarks)
- February 1, 2017
  Consider the case where your TV performed great in the showroom but not so great at home. Now tell me tweaking your TV to perform better only in showroom is cheating or not?
- Lazar Prodanovic
  February 1, 2017
  Yes it’s cheating as it’s deliberately there to deceit costumers.
- Igen
  February 1, 2017
  Overclocked only when the bench-marking apps are running so that the device can get better scores. This is cheating, even Oneplus can not disagree to this.

Zero
February 1, 2017
If that is cheating, the Beast Mode of Samsung Galaxy S8 is on a similar vein.
goodwill
February 1, 2017
OP3 is a developer’s phone. You can still get such performances by tweaking the kernel yourself with custom kernels, really.
The Calm Critic
February 1, 2017
I partly blame the “5 percenters” (being generous here. Could be even lower…). These Geekbench + Antutu fetish fanatics are a lot worse than what anyone can observe from their PC OCers counterparts, it’s beyond infantile really.
- Wolvie
  February 2, 2017
  I never believe those benchmark result. I more believe on those real live user experience that use the product and posted on their review and opinion on the forums.
  That’s why i really hate elephoney who paid those fake paid poster trolls. Because if every company start doing that cheating then how do i know which review is the true ?

Nolan
February 5, 2017
- balcobomber25
  February 5, 2017
  That’s hilarious that you use a meaningless score as your buying decision. I buy my phones based on features, software, reviews and user forums.
  - NextHype
    February 8, 2017
balcobomber25
February 5, 2017
This is nothing new, companies have been cheating on benchmarks for years. This is why I always say Antutu is nothing but useless numbers to compare with other useless numbers.