The repercussions of the MediaTek scandal are growing. Now, UL Benchmarks, a known benchmarking platform for PCs and smartphones, have delisted handsets from Xiaomi, Oppo, Vivo, Sony and Realme that feature the MediaTek processor.

For those unaware, MediaTek was recently accused of cheating on benchmarks. According to AnandTech, the chipmaker pushes its chipsets to unsustainable ‘Sports Mode’ during benchmarks. This improves the scoring of the smartphone, which displays inaccurate scores. The tampering of the scores could potentially act as advertising if it is greater than the competition and could also be misleading.

Thus, UL Benchmarks (previously known as Futuremark) have delisted every smartphone in their platform that runs a MediaTek processor, especially the newer generations. This isn’t the first time the firm has resorted to delisting, as back in 2013, the company had also delisted HTC and Samsung smartphone for cheating. The names of chipsets blacklisted by UL Benchmarks include MediaTek’s Helio G90, G70, P96, P90, P65, P60, P20, and A22.

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The official reasoning given out was in two parts. First, the discrepancies in performance numbers found by AnandTech was confirmed by UL Benchmarks. Furthermore, the latter has its own benchmarking rules and called quoted MediaTek’s statement which practically confirmed in its misleading practices for benchmarks.

Oddly enough, MediaTek still stands by its benchmarking scores and practices, and is firmly convinced of no wrongdoings. Interestingly, the chipmaker also offers OEMs the option to enable the cheat, so its discretion is also subjective. Thus, the argument falls in a slightly gray area, since whitelisting applications for performance boosts is universally frowned upon, but also depends on the OEM that is using the processor.

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AnTuTu has got a brand new update, version 7.2.6, and the changelog mentions a very important point. The new version which was released earlier today, mentions that it will “fix the issue of an abnormal running score of UX caused by malicious exploitation of system permissions by some manufacturers”.

In the past few years, it has become a trend for manufacturers to boasts about their smartphone’s AnTuTu scores, even at their launch events. This is especially true in smartphone launches in China. Such is the importance that we give to this benchmarking tool.

And in the process, we have often seen manufacturers tweak their smartphones to score better than others. OnePlus, Meizu, OPPO, Huawei have all been found cheating on AnTuTu in the past. This isn’t really surprising given that users often assume a higher AnTuTu score is synonymous to a faster and more powerful smartphone.

The usual method of cheating on AnTuTu has been to tweak the smartphones to detect when the app is running and unleashing the full power of the CPU without any regard for efficiency, which it usually would, under normal use case scenario.

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AnTuTu 7.2.6 update doesn’t really explain how it would stop such cheating from manufacturers, but if you were worried that you could be fooled, at least know that AnTuTu is trying something from their end.

Personally, I believe we should always take AnTuTu scores for the sake of reference, instead of pitting two phones with minute differences against each other to hail one as the ultimate winner.

Currently, the AnTuTu 7.2.6 version is only available via its Chinese website (link here!). The one on the app store is still v7.0.

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