After severe backlash from fans and media regarding the app performance issues in the OnePlus 9 series, OnePlus finally came out to talk about it. For starters, the smartphone giant’s latest smartphones, the OnePlus 9 and 9 Pro were removed from the Geekbench listings because the phones were making performance decisions based on the app identifiers and not the app behaviors.
As a result, the performance benchmarks of the phones in benchmarking apps were on par with other Snapdragon 888-powered devices, but the phones were underperforming while using certain apps. Due to this, OnePlus received severe criticism from fans for slowing down their device. Here’s what OnePlus has to say regarding the issue.
OnePlus 9 Pro Benchmark Issues: Finally Settled?
It all started when AnandTech reported about the OnePlus 9 Pro’s benchmark issues. From the tests conducted, the blog reported that OnePlus was significantly underpowering browsers. To understand how huge the difference between the browser tests on the OnePlus 9 Pro. In the Speedometer 2.0 test, Chrome scored 16.0 while Vivaldi scored a whopping 107.0. There are a lot of app benchmarks, so make sure to check out the article.
Judging from the comments founder Pete Lau received on Twitter and the original post on OnePlus forums, it turns out fans are still disappointed because the company wasn’t transparent at first.
In the post, OnePlus stated, “The OnePlus R&D team also maintains a list of applications. We try to optimize apps like Chrome, Twitter, Zoom, and our own apps. These optimizations are finalized after our testing team makes sure the actual user experience is not negatively affected.”
To which an app developer replied this.
And that’s a fair argument. However, this is not the first time OnePlus is under the radar for bad app optimizations. One of the most popular websites in the Android enthusiast’s space, dontkillmyapp.com, has rated OnePlus’ OxygenOS the second-worst Android skin for app optimization. The company ranked first around a year ago.
A lot of tech blogs rated the OnePlus 9 Pro’s battery as mediocre. In contrast, many users on social media reported overheating issues. This could be why OnePlus decided to boil down the performance of apps.
OnePlus 9 Pro Performance and Overheating Issues
Another strange thing that OnePlus wrote is, “In the case of the OnePlus 9 and 9 Pro when you open apps or heavy games, the Snapdragon 888 processor. This includes the super powerful X1 CPU core, which will run at full speed to provide the best performance. But with actions that do not require the maximum power, the CPU need not run fast to do that smoothly. The OnePlus 9 and 9 Pro reduce the CPU frequency in these scenarios to reduce power consumption and heat dissipation while maintaining a smooth experience.”
The reason why I find this argument useless is, modern SoC’s are smart enough to switch cores based on the app load. With the above statement, the company’s trying to justify that the problem is in Snapdragon 888. Even if it’s the SoC’s fault, the low-powered, energy-efficient cores aren’t that slow that they’d throttle the performance down to what we see in the benchmarks. This proves that Oxygen OS is boiling down the performance to keep the phones cool and improve battery life.
Earlier this month, OnePlus merged with its parent company OPPO to establish a more global Chinese smartphone image. Fans have been lashing out at the company for increasing the prices of its flagships and for not being the “Enthusiasts-focused” company that it used to be.
Another argument floating around on the internet is that; users don’t pay a premium to be restricted by software optimizations and app performance degradations like these. Do you agree with this? Do you think OnePlus failed to cover this up, or are they moving in the right direction? Let us know in the comments section below.
