Samsung S4 beats HTC One in ‘uncheatable’ benchmark test

Following revelations that almost all Android handset and tablet manufacturers cheat in benchmark tests, detecting the benchmark software and ramping up performance for the duration of the test, GameBench thinks it’s come up with an approach which is impossible to cheat.

Engadget reports that the company – whose co-founders both worked for chipmakers – take a different approach, running real games and using a background app to take systems measurements while those games are running … 

Instead of throwing a synthetic, predictable and short-lived task at a phone, like certain other benchmarks do, GameBench’s app runs in the background while a genuine game title is being played. It takes numerous measurements of the system, including the median frame rate and the rate of battery drain.

Using this approach to compare the performance of the Samsung S4 and HTC One handsets when running four popular games, GameBench says the Samsung handset delivered the better performance.

If we look at these two measurements for the GS4 and HTC One, across four different games, it’s clear the Samsung phone delivers much smoother gameplay, albeit at the expense of slightly higher battery drain. GameBench’s developers point out that this is something you’d never have been able to tell from a popular Android benchmark like GFXBench, whose “T-Rex” test scores these phones as having totally identical graphical performance.