HTC just released it’s latest phone the HTC One (M8), and it didn’t take long for people to figure out that HTC was cheating on benchmarks in a similar way that Samsung was caught doing. Here’s the details from GSM Arena:
The reason for the eyebrow raising is AnTuTu X – an alternative version to AnTuTu 4 specially designed to prevent devices from cheating. When ePrice, which originally reported the beastly benchmark results of the One (M8), decided to run AnTuTu X on the phone, the results where quite different.
In fact, they’ve run the Samsung Galaxy S5, LG G Pro 2 and Sony Xperia Z2 alongside the HTC One (M8) on both AnTuTu 4 and AnTuTu X to see the differences. Save for the HTC One (M8) all of them scored similar results in the two benchmark apps, but the One (M8) showed an alarming difference of over 10,000 points.
In other words, all these phones should have been close because the hardware is similar. But the HTC was miles ahead. Hmmm…. What really got my attention is what HTC told News.com about this:
I asked HTC how the One M8 handles benchmark apps like AnTuTu, and received this response:
“Thanks for your email about the HTC One (M8). Benchmarking tests look to determine maximum performance of the CPU and GPU and, similar to the engine in a high-performance sports car, our engineers optimize in certain scenarios to produce the best possible performance. If someone would like to get around this benchmarking optimization there are ways to do so, but we think most often this will not be the case.”
So, not only is HTC admitting that the One M8 does kick itself into high-performance mode when it detects a benchmarking app, the company representative who responded to me went on to make it clear that HTC doesn’t see this as any kind of “cheating,” but as a potential feature:
“For those with a need for speed, we’ve provided a simple way to unleash this power by introducing a new High Performance Mode in the developer settings that can be enabled and disabled manually. The HTC One (M8) is optimized to provide the best balance of performance and battery life, but we believe in offering customer choice, as there may be times when the desire for performance outweighs the need for battery longevity.”
The HTC rep said that this mode is not yet available on US devices right now but will come to them shortly via software update.
I find this answer to be problematic. The average user will not be using this “developer setting” in their day to day usage of this phone. Thus this “feature” is of no value to them. But it clearly is a value to HTC. Now I’m not shocked by this. I’ve been around long enough to know that companies have been cheating on benchmarks for as long as benchmarks have been around. But to say it’s a feature is a new one. We’ll see if they continue to stand by this explanation as this story starts to circulate around the Internet.
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This entry was posted on March 31, 2014 at 7:29 am and is filed under Commentary with tags HTC. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.
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HTC Cheats On Benchmarks…. But It’s A Feature….Huh?
HTC just released it’s latest phone the HTC One (M8), and it didn’t take long for people to figure out that HTC was cheating on benchmarks in a similar way that Samsung was caught doing. Here’s the details from GSM Arena:
The reason for the eyebrow raising is AnTuTu X – an alternative version to AnTuTu 4 specially designed to prevent devices from cheating. When ePrice, which originally reported the beastly benchmark results of the One (M8), decided to run AnTuTu X on the phone, the results where quite different.
In fact, they’ve run the Samsung Galaxy S5, LG G Pro 2 and Sony Xperia Z2 alongside the HTC One (M8) on both AnTuTu 4 and AnTuTu X to see the differences. Save for the HTC One (M8) all of them scored similar results in the two benchmark apps, but the One (M8) showed an alarming difference of over 10,000 points.
In other words, all these phones should have been close because the hardware is similar. But the HTC was miles ahead. Hmmm…. What really got my attention is what HTC told News.com about this:
I asked HTC how the One M8 handles benchmark apps like AnTuTu, and received this response:
“Thanks for your email about the HTC One (M8). Benchmarking tests look to determine maximum performance of the CPU and GPU and, similar to the engine in a high-performance sports car, our engineers optimize in certain scenarios to produce the best possible performance. If someone would like to get around this benchmarking optimization there are ways to do so, but we think most often this will not be the case.”
So, not only is HTC admitting that the One M8 does kick itself into high-performance mode when it detects a benchmarking app, the company representative who responded to me went on to make it clear that HTC doesn’t see this as any kind of “cheating,” but as a potential feature:
“For those with a need for speed, we’ve provided a simple way to unleash this power by introducing a new High Performance Mode in the developer settings that can be enabled and disabled manually. The HTC One (M8) is optimized to provide the best balance of performance and battery life, but we believe in offering customer choice, as there may be times when the desire for performance outweighs the need for battery longevity.”
The HTC rep said that this mode is not yet available on US devices right now but will come to them shortly via software update.
I find this answer to be problematic. The average user will not be using this “developer setting” in their day to day usage of this phone. Thus this “feature” is of no value to them. But it clearly is a value to HTC. Now I’m not shocked by this. I’ve been around long enough to know that companies have been cheating on benchmarks for as long as benchmarks have been around. But to say it’s a feature is a new one. We’ll see if they continue to stand by this explanation as this story starts to circulate around the Internet.
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This entry was posted on March 31, 2014 at 7:29 am and is filed under Commentary with tags HTC. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.