Big Tech News: 3DMark Delists Red Magic, DeepSeek V4 Set to Launch

Weekly Tech Roundup: From Benchmark Cheating to AI Model Breakthroughs

This week was a whirlwind in the tech world, spanning a benchmark cheating scandal in the smartphone industry, a major AI model announcement, a war of words between auto executives, and eye-wateringly expensive consumer electronics. Here are the most noteworthy tech developments of the week.

3DMark Officially Delists Red Magic Phones: 24% Performance Gap Exposed

On April 12, UL Solutions, the parent company of the renowned benchmark platform 3DMark, issued an official statement formally removing the Red Magic 11 Pro and Red Magic 11 Pro+ from all 3DMark performance rankings, invalidating all associated benchmark scores.

The controversy originated from a complaint filed last month by YouTube user Saityo, who flagged anomalies in the Red Magic 11 Pro's 3DMark benchmark results. Following the complaint, the 3DMark testing team conducted two independent rounds of verification testing, discovering that Red Magic phones automatically switched to a "special performance mode" upon detecting benchmark software, dramatically boosting processor frequencies and GPU power consumption, only to revert to normal power levels during everyday usage.

Test data revealed a staggering 24% performance gap between the Red Magic 11 Pro's benchmark results and real-world usage scenarios, with device surface temperatures soaring above 50°C during benchmark runs. 3DMark stated that this "selective enhancement" behavior constitutes a serious violation of its fair testing guidelines and represents a textbook case of benchmark cheating.

The incident has once again thrust the smartphone industry's long-standing gray area of "benchmark optimization" into the spotlight. While brands like Huawei and Samsung have previously been delisted by 3DMark for similar practices, Red Magic's 24% performance discrepancy is arguably the most egregious case on record, sparking widespread skepticism about the authenticity of advertised smartphone performance.

DeepSeek V4 Confirmed for Late April Release: AI Model Race Accelerates

In the AI space, the biggest news this week was the revelation by DeepSeek founder Liang Wenfeng that DeepSeek V4 will officially launch in late April.

As a rising star among Chinese-developed large language models, DeepSeek has earned widespread recognition in the global AI community through its open-source strategy and highly competitive technical capabilities. Its previously released DeepSeek V3 and DeepSeek-R1 series models delivered impressive results across multiple authoritative benchmarks, drawing significant attention from the international tech community.

The timing of the V4 release is particularly strategic — coming precisely as international giants such as OpenAI, Google, and Anthropic are rolling out rapid-fire model updates. DeepSeek's decision to launch its next-generation model at this juncture signals strong confidence in its technical reserves. Industry analysts expect V4 to deliver significant improvements in reasoning capabilities, multimodal processing, and long-context comprehension, further narrowing the gap with the world's leading models.

Li Xiang Blasts Dongfeng Nissan: Auto Industry Competition Reaches Boiling Point

Li Auto CEO Li Xiang took to his WeChat Moments feed with a scathing critique of Dongfeng Nissan's marketing practices, using a provocative wartime metaphor to describe what he called their "malicious smear tactics." The remarks quickly went viral on social media.

Dongfeng Nissan executives responded publicly, and the resulting exchange underscored the intense competition gripping China's automotive market. As new energy vehicles continue to erode traditional ICE vehicle market share, friction between joint-venture brands and domestic automakers is growing increasingly frequent and fierce.

iPhone Ultra Is Coming: Apple's Most Expensive iPhone Ever with 11 Million Units in First Batch

Major news emerged from Apple's camp: the iPhone Ultra, positioned for the ultra-premium market, has a first-batch production volume of 11 million units, signaling Apple's strong confidence in this entirely new product line. As the most expensive iPhone ever produced, the Ultra series marks a further escalation of Apple's aggressive high-end market strategy.

More Industry Developments Worth Watching

Midea Launches Industry-First Air Conditioning Product — Midea introduced a ducted air conditioning unit priced under 10,000 RMB, an industry first that further solidifies its leadership in the residential central air conditioning market.

Meizu's Flyme OS Changes Hands — Following the suspension of Meizu's smartphone business, the company's acclaimed Flyme OS operations have officially been transferred to new ownership, marking the end of an era for the smartphone brand.

NIO's Li Bin on Business Travel Standards — NIO CEO Li Bin revealed that he follows the same business travel policies as frontline employees, paying out of pocket for premium hotel upgrades. The statement sparked industry-wide discussions about corporate culture.

Samsung Memory Workers' Union Demands Massive Bonuses — Samsung's memory division union has demanded per-capita bonuses of approximately 2.85 million RMB (around $390,000), reflecting the profit-sharing battles emerging across the global memory chip industry following its cyclical recovery.

Summary and Outlook

This week's tech news highlighted several notable trends: first, growing demands for industry transparency and fair competition, with the 3DMark delisting serving as a prime example; second, the continued intensification of the AI model race, with DeepSeek V4's imminent launch heralding a new round of technical iteration for Chinese-developed LLMs; and third, an accelerating bifurcation in the consumer electronics market, from iPhone Ultra's ultra-premium positioning to Midea's value-driven strategy, as different brands carve out their own differentiated paths.

In the coming weeks, with the official debut of DeepSeek V4 and a packed schedule of spring product launches from major tech companies, the tech industry looks poised for yet another wave of innovation.