S4 hard-coded to boost benchmark app scores

[AntimonyER]

But how do they test performance if not for benchmarks? you can't just say X is faster because it feels smooth. Nobody would take them seriously if they did that.

But how can you take them seriously if they do report them, now that we see at least one manufacturer gaming them. Besides, at the end of the day, I don't care about the benchmark score, but I do care about fast it "feels".

Wow, how slow am I, ninja'd by a Slug.

 

[Davdi]

'How fas it feels' is about right.
I use 2 phones, A stock, unrooted, Xperia U and a Wildfire S which is rooted, running the WildChild3 rom and O/C to 806MHz. But, the WFS with its single core at 89% of the Sony's dual core speed, still feels much more responsive in general use. Even running stock GB/Sense 2.1 it was less laggy.

 

[Shocky]

Well we sure can't take them seriously if manufacturers are rigging the results either.

Maybe its time for game benchmarking, but I can't see reviewers going through the effort to root and record framerates.

Or maybe find a way to make the phone treat the benchmarks like any other app, i'm sure some devs out there can figure out a way round it.

Benchmarks themselves are not the issue.

Also one could argue they never said it would always be at 533MHz in 3d applications, much like the CPU in the snapdragon version is never always at 1.9GHz, it has to clock down eventually or it will overheat, same is true of the GPU so one could call it optimized.

I don't care about the benchmark score, but I do care about fast it "feels".

But you can't measure how something "feels", we all have our own opinion on what we call smooth.

 

[Hadron]

Well if the manufacturer codes for specific apps it will probably be more work to do anything about that than to root the phone.

The problem is that whatever test you use, you want consistency. So if it's based on specific apps (games or benchmarks) then if the same ones are widely used, or used consistently by some influential reviewers, the same temptation is there.

I guess you'd need a performance test that's broad enough that it's less effort to just optimise performance overall . In other words, a suite of tests that really represent usage without relying on one or four apps. But that's more effort for the reviewer.