This week the latest in Qualcomm Snapdragon processor tech appeared in a benchmark that shows mobile processing performance. This benchmark is not the end-all be-all of tests of this sort of thing, but it's a pretty OK test of general performance. What we're seeing here is the latest Qualcomm Snapdragon chip out-performing Apple's latest processor by a significant margin.
It’s open season on benchmark cheaters again. After Huawei’s recent high-profile and admittedly candid admission of guilt, reviewers and benchmark tool makers are again on high alert regarding phones and companies that may be trying to game the system just to get a higher score. UL, which own benchmark maker PCMark, has already delisted a number of Huawei’s phones for that misconduct. But as Huawei complained, it wasn’t the only one cheating and now another of its rivals and compatriots, OPPO, is getting the same sanction.
Benchmarking is almost like a game. Well, it really is a numbers game where companies try to reach for the highest (or lowest, depending on the ranking system) figures through any means possible, sometimes even through cheating. Still, it's an interesting phenomenon to watch and to see how smartphone makers rank up in terms of perceived performance. AnTuTu, makers of one of the most popular smartphone benchmarking apps, has just released its September chart and, suffice it to say, the top-ranking phones are not what you might expect.
In the near future, a collection of Huawei smartphones will have a new "Performance Mode" enabled that makes them more powerful. This power comes at a cost, of course, as it's essentially an overclocking for a smartphone - it puts all emphasis on the processing power of which the phone is capable. This is the result of Huawei appearing to "cheat" on benchmark tests with 3D Mark - they've agreed to make their methods more accessible to all!
Huawei’s recent misstep was like opening up a wound we thought had gone away. And while Huawei did admit to cheating benchmarking tools, its justification for doing so only serves to highlight something that was brought up half a decade ago. Mobile benchmarks, while not completely useless, are still nowhere near the maturity of their PC counterparts. Worse, they have even served to further the agenda of manufacturers instead of helping consumers make better choices.
It really doesn’t come as a surprise that Huawei is now getting penalized for what it has more or less admitted to doing. Necroing a practice long thought dead, Huawei has been caught red-handed cheating benchmarks to boost numbers in favor of its Kirin 970 smartphones. Considering the scandal that practically endangered their business, 3DMark developers Futuremark reacted swiftly and has announced that four of Huawei’s and Honor’s smartphones are now delisted from its benchmark scores.
Thought the whole benchmark cheating scandal was behind us? Apparently not. Some OEMs have just gotten better at hiding it. Or at least that’s the picture that Huawei is painting after it was caught red-handed using a benchmark detection feature. But unlike other manufacturers in the past, it didn’t deny the allegation but instead tried to justify why it was doing so. Bottom line: its competitors are doing it anyway and trying to cheat it out of the market.
The Samsung Galaxy S10 had details leaked in a set of benchmark results this week, showing the device as speedier than any Galaxy before. This device was shown as speedy in its processing power, but also speedy in its adoption of the newest version of Android. If Samsung is indeed already working with Android 9 Pie and running 3rd-party benchmark tests on their smartphone this early before its release date, the Galaxy S10 might change Samsung forever.
The Meltdown and Spectre vulnerabilities that were discovered last week are very bad news, and though Intel has been quick to roll out patches for them, the measures it had to take aren't exactly ideal. Specifically, these patches come with a performance hit for Intel systems, and in the lead up to their delivery, some benchmarks showed that the potential slowdown could be as high as 30%. While Meltdown and Spectre are issues that absolutely need to be defended against, the looming slowdown that accompanied these patches was still a bitter pill for Intel users to swallow.
Benchmarks are a thorny subject, especially on mobile. A favorite among PC users, especially gamers, benchmarks have fallen out of fashion and under suspicion, no thanks to some OEMs caught “cheating” these tools. Of course, that hasn’t stopped Futuremark, creators of PCMark and the cross-platform 3DMark, in trying to make their numbers more relevant and more meaningful to users. Which is exactly what it trying to do with the latest update to the 3DMark benchmark app for Android, giving the tool a more “human” message.
This afternoon we're taking a peek at a set of leaked benchmark scores for the next iPhone from Apple. The device in question is the iPhone 8, a device whose final release date-set name isn't finalized - and whose very existence hasn't yet been confirmed by Apple. As such, take the following with a grain of salt - but also know that the sources we're using here have rarely been wrong - or even really inaccurate - in the recent past.
Yesterday a rumor popped up that suggested that the iPhone 7 Plus would be packing a new 2.4GHz A10 processor under the hood. The rumor also suggested that the new iPhone would also come in a new color called piano black. Today the iPhone 7 Plus has allegedly turned up on GeekBench showing off its impressive performance.