A number of reports made the rounds on Monday claiming that the upcoming Galaxy S9 Plus had been spotted on popular benchmark engine Geekbench’s online database – but that isn’t true. Here’s why.
Samsung is expected to start mass producing the Galaxy S9 and Galaxy S9 Plus as soon as next month, so it’s possible that a number of prototypes are floating around – and that’s exactly what a beady-eyed trickster was looking to exploit.
On Monday, November 13, a Dutch website reported that the Galaxy S9 Plus had been spotted on Geekbench’s database, armed with Samsung’s new Exynos 9810 processor and 4GB of RAM, instantly sending the Internet into a frenzy.
How could the firm justify bundling 4GB of RAM on the Galaxy S9 Plus when the Galaxy S8 Plus – and Galaxy Note 8, for that matter – comes with 6GB, people wondered. The answer is: it couldn’t. The benchmark had to be fake.
After doing a little digging, we, together with the folks over at SamMobile, found a number of discrepancies in the filing, the most notable being that the Processor Identifier is representative of a SoC used on the Galaxy Note 5 and Galaxy S6.
That, coupled with the fact the Galaxy S9 Plus scored tremendously lower than both the Galaxy S8 and Galaxy S8 Plus in the benchmark, can be considered confirmation that the information has, in fact, been falsified.
But if that isn’t enough to convince you, maybe this will.
We uncovered an identical Geekbench listing, which dates back to July. Sure, there’s a chance a prototype could have been functional back then, but it would have been impossible for it to have been running Android 8.0 Oreo, as the filing states.
A handset had to have been tampered with to generate the result – and it isn’t overly difficult to do. There are a number of applications available for rooted Android smartphones that let you alter system information.
The moral of the story? Don’t believe everything you read online.
Are you looking forward to the Galaxy S9 and Galaxy S9 Plus? Do you think they will ship with at least 6GB of RAM? Be sure to let us know over on Facebook or Twitter @TrustedReviews.
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Editorial independence
Editorial independence means being able to give an unbiased verdict about a product or company, with the avoidance of conflicts of interest. To ensure this is possible, every member of the editorial staff follows a clear code of conduct.
Professional conduct
We also expect our journalists to follow clear ethical standards in their work. Our staff members must strive for honesty and accuracy in everything they do. We follow the IPSO Editors’ code of practice to underpin these standards.
