Welcome to the smartphone industry, Google! The company’s first-generation Pixel smartphones were adored by diehard Android fans, who were ecstatic to finally have the opportunity to get a premium flagship phone running stock Android. The original Pixel and Pixel XL were hardly best-sellers with just one carrier partner, but people who did buy them seemed to really love them and anticipation for Google’s next-generation models was surprisingly high.
Fast-forward to October 2017 and things didn’t quite unfold as planned. There was tons of hype surrounding the launch of Google’s new Pixel 2 and Pixel 2 XL, but problems came one after the other once the phones finally made it into users’ hands. The larger Pixel 2 XL is clearly the more desirable of the two phones, and sadly it’s also plagued with far more problems than its smaller counterpart. Now, it looks like yet another issue has arisen with the new flagship phablet.
The most widespread and widely covered problems with the Pixel 2 XL involves the phone’s display. LG’s large OLED panels for televisions are the best in the business, but there were questions surrounding the company’s smaller OLED screens for smartphones. It appears as though concerns were not unfounded, because the company’s panels used in the Pixel 2 XL seem to have some major problems.
Many users have found that the screen has a tint to it that causes discoloration on the display, especially when content is viewed at an angle. Even worse, many users have found that there is a severe issue with OLED burn-in, where images that stay on the display for a long period of time can completely ruin the screen. Check out this post from a Reddit user whose Pixel 2 XL display was completely ruined just because he used the same wallpaper for three days. As you can see, the bottom of the phone’s display is completely discolored:
At least that Redditor got to use his phone for a little while, though. Elsewhere on Reddit, we find a new report from a person who recently received his Pixel 2 XL and didn’t even get to set it up. Why? A picture is worth 1,000 words:
This is the latest in a series of reports from people who received defective Pixel 2 XL units from Google. And that’s in addition to other issues we’ve seen, like poor construction, clicking sounds, and even high-pitched squealing. It becomes more clear with each passing day that Google and its partners have serious problems with quality assurance, and users are suffering as a result. It’s not too late to salvage this year’s new Pixel phones, but it’s going to take a lot of work.
