Android users, we’ve been duped: it appears that Samsung is falsifying benchmark results for the Galaxy S4. According to a recent report by AnandTech, the Galaxy S4 features a BenchmarkBooster function that includes hard-coded profiles for certain benchmarking applications.

The BenchmarkBooster function basically told the Android to run at maximum performance when running benchmark applications. Instead of getting a reliable benchmark result, Android testers would get an inflated result.

When running the “AnTuTu” benchmark application, for example, the GS4 GPU ran at 532MHz instead of the standard 480MHz. In other cases, all four cores of the i9505 Snapdragon model were set to run at maximum speed for a benchmark test.

How much of a boost are we talking about? Most benchmark applications experienced a boost of between 10% to 14%, which is significant in an industry where mobile processors and OS versions may only be a few percentage points apart.

Fair play? Cheating? I would say it’s definitely cheating and false advertising. Unfortunately, I would be extremely surprised if Samsung was the only company doing this. Welcome to the tech world folks!