Huawei And UL Issue Joint Statement Over 3DMark Benchmark Cheating
At the time, UL stated, "We found that the scores from the public 3DMark app were up to 47% higher than the scores from the private app, even though the tests are identical... This kind of detection and optimization is forbidden by our rules for manufacturers."
Following the news story blowing up yesterday and gaining widespread attention, cooler heads have prevailed and both UL and Huawei have come together to issue a joint statement with regards to the controversy. The two indicate that they have reached a "positive agreement on the next steps in working together."
"In the discussion, Huawei explained that its smartphones use an artificial intelligent resource scheduling mechanism. Because different scenarios have different resource needs, the latest Huawei handsets leverage innovative technologies such as artificial intelligence to optimize resource allocation in a way so that the hardware can demonstrate its capabilities to the fullest extent, while fulfilling user demands across all scenarios.
"UL understands the intent of Huawei’s approach, but is opposed to forcing the use of a 'Performance Mode' by default when a benchmarking application is detected by the device. UL rules require a device to run the benchmark as if it were any other application."
For its part, Huawei says that it will no longer default to this Performance Mode on its smartphones, and instead will give users the option to enable it with EMUI 9.0. That way, the user can choose for himself (or herself) when to boost performance beyond usual operating limits. This provides transparency to Huawei customers (and reviewers) while also complying with UL's guidelines for its benchmarks.
Going forward, "UL and Huawei would like to participate in an industry movement to develop benchmarking standards that best serve the needs of manufacturers, press, and consumers." We should also mention that the aforementioned Huawei smartphones will remain delisted until the company follows through on its intention to make Performance Mode user-accessible.
