It would appear Samsung hasn’t been entirely truthful about the Galaxy S4’s performance. According to a report from AnandTech this week, the device was manipulated to perform better in industry benchmark tests, which enthusiasts often regard highly when making a purchasing decision. But Samsung has gone on the defensive Wednesday to dispel the reports, claiming clock speeds vary in order to optimize graphics performance.
In AnandTech’s report, it was revealed that the S4’s GPU clocked in at 533MHz in benchmarking tests, while actual performance was somewhere around 480MHz. It’s obvious why that can be construed as manipulation on Samsung’s part, especially when a “benchmark booster” reference was uncovered in the device’s code. Samsung, of course, is denying things were rigged at all, and says the device was designed to perform better for certain applications.
So, in the case of certain benchmarking apps, which demand “substantial performance,” the S4 will run at maximum GP frequency of 533MHz. Basically Samsung has admitted the S4 juices in some instances, but claims the steroid feature was by design from the beginning; another benchmark test, strangely, showed CPU performance was clocked well under more standard testing.
Numbers don’t lie, and AnandTech’s data shows something is definitely suspicious with the S4’s benchmarking scores. However, to a real human being that just wants a powerful, well put together smartphone, that really shouldn’t matter at all. You can pound your fists in anger at Samsung for maybe using technical tactics to make itself look better, but it’s not like a higher benchmark score will fulfill your life in any way. At least I hope not.
