HTC says they purposefully juiced One (M8) benchmarks

Cheating on benchmarks became part of the conversation late last year, as several Android OEMs were found to be boosting performance. While fooling the likes of AnTuTu to make your device appear better sounds terrible, HTC thinks it’s alright. Not only do they accept it, they endorse it.

The new HTC One (M8) was recently called into question, as benchmark tests put it well ahead of other Android handsets in various instances. AnTuTu’s own test had the new One well ahead on points, while their cheat-cheating AnTuTu X benchmark test put it somewhere more middle of the road. That’s two different results: a believable one on the X test, and an out-of-this-world showing on the regular test. What is going on, here?

CNET reached out to HTC regarding the test, and got a surprising response. Not only does HTC know their test results were falsified, they approved and endorse the behavior:

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.

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.

So there you have it. HTC said the High Performance Mode wasn’t yet available on US models, but likely would be at some point. It’s an interesting move, but surprising? HTC is terrible about keeping info on their devices quiet, and likely don’t care if things leak, as it creates and perpetuates hype. We’ll give them credit for coming clean about cheating tests, though — or at least coming through with the best PR response we’ve seen in regard to the subject.