If the Xda Developers website is to be believed, Chinese smartphone manufacturer Oneplus has cheated in the benchmark scores for the newly-launched OnePlus 5. Folks at the XDA Developers have accused the China-based OEM of "inappropriately manipulating benchmark scores."
However, the news does not come as a surprise as OnePlus is not the first smartphone manufacturer to incorporate CPU boosters inside devices, which are being sent for review to numerous media outlets. Such a move helps the handset score better in benchmarking tests.
How did OnePlus cheat in benchmarking tests?
Back in 2013, leading OEMS such as LG, Samsung, ASUS, and HTC were all accused of altering the review units of their respective smartphones just to get better scores in benchmarks. However, this would be the second time in a year that OnePlus has been accused of cheating in the benchmark tests. After a thorough analysis the review unit of OnePlus 5, XDA Developers' Mario Tomás Serrafero discovered that the unit they received from the company was tweaked so that it could perform better in benchmark tests.
In an article on the XDA Developers website, he explained how the company achieved this sneaky feat. Serrafero stated that a smartphone manufacturer simply has to integrate a cheating device inside the review units.
These devices are designed specifically to boost the performance of the handset when it detects that a benchmarking application is being run.
OnePlus responds to allegations
About this cheating mechanism, the folks at XDA Developers contacted OnePlus for their thoughts on the matter. The company replied that it just wanted to display the full potential of the OnePlus 5.
The OEM did not deny the allegations and said that they did not overclock the OnePlus 5 review unit, but instead revealed to the world the full potential of the device. The OEM claims that it has simply permitted benchmark apps to run in a state, which is similar to the way the smartphone will be run by a user daily and involves running various apps that are resource intensive.
OnePlus also said that while one launches the apps on the smartphone, the smartphone runs in the same state to boost the opening speed of the apps. In response to the story published by XDA Developers, the company’s co-founder Carl Pei expressed his thoughts on Reddit. He shared that the new handset performs the same way whether one is running benchmark apps or “resource-intensive apps such as 3D games.” The XDA Developers noted that they were disappointed with the company’s actions and hoped that the OEM would remove the benchmark cheating code from OnePlus 5 software.
