OnePlus Is In Scrutiny By Geekbench For Alleged Benchmark Cheating

We have seen various Android OEMs tuning the performance on the benchmarking apps to make their smartphone look powerful. However, OnePlus has done the other way around, where, the company has actually turned down the performance of over 300 popular apps on the OnePlus 9 and the OnePlus 9 Pro.

It was first reported by AnandTech that there is some tangible performance difference on normal apps and benchmarking apps on the OnePlus 9 and the OnePlus 9 Pro. As soon as the story went viral, Geekbench actually blacklisted these devices and confirmed to investigate other OnePlus smartphones for a similar tweaking. If proved, the remaining OnPlus smartphones will also face the same consequences.

What Happened?

According to AnandTech, it has not favored the benchmarking apps, instead, it has blacklisted over 300 most popular apps, including Google Chrome from using faster CPU cores, which indeed slows down these apps. This means, these popular apps have to use efficient cores for their functionality, which will slow these apps.

OnePlus in its official statement almost re-affirms the aforementioned statement, where it says that it has "optimize the devices' performance when using 300 of the most popular apps, including Chrome, by matching the app's processor requirements with the most appropriate power".

In OnePlus's defense, the company has done this to reduce power consumption, which in return improves the battery life. Additionally, the company says this optimization was done based on user feedback to improve battery life and thermal management on the OnePlus 9 and the OnePlus 9 Pro, powered by the Qualcomm Snapdragon 888 5G SoC.

It's disappointing to see OnePlus handsets making performance decisions based on application identifiers rather than application behavior. We view this as a form of benchmark manipulation. We've delisted the OnePlus 9 and OnePlus 9 Pro from our Android Benchmark chart. https://t.co/G40wmWeg7o

— Geekbench (@geekbench) July 6, 2021

The Issue Is Being Non-Transparent

Most users would have the OnePlus 9 or the OnePlus 9 Pro by checking the reviews online, where, the phones offered top-tier performance with no blacklisting of apps from accessing high-performance cores. However, when they buy these devices they might notice a significant performance difference, and OnePlus should have been a little transparent about this development.

As of now, there is no information if OnePlus will reverse these changes, as they might cause the device to overheat and take a hit on the battery life. Hope the company mentions things like these in the software update log so that the owner of the smartphone will be aware of the future consequences.