Earlier this year Google introduced the Made by Google program. It’s essentially anything designed and created by Google and manufactured by a partnership with another company. Keeping that in mind Google’s latest iterations of their Pixel line of smartphones, the Pixel 2 and Pixel 2 XL are now out in the public’s hands but are being reported to have all sorts of issues and complaints.
I read on Twitter for example that one person has gone through three Pixel 2 XL phones where each one has turned off and died. The latest to hit mainstream tech media are Pixel 2 XL phones being shipped with no operating system installed. Before that were phones being shipped with no headphones when they are suppose to be included, other Pixel 2 XL phones are getting premature screen “burn in” and odd “black smearing” on the screen. The latter Google had stated that this shouldn’t happen and will be addressed with software updates and extended warranties to 2 full years. While that is commendable, that particular issue probably should have been seen during testing.
Don’t get me wrong anything mass produced may come back with an issue or two. It just can’t be avoided because it’s an impossible task to make everything perfect. But this does seem a little much in my option. Samsung’s Galaxy S7 had the very serious battery swelling and exploding issue but that was it. Apple’s iPhone 4 had an overly exposed cellular antennas design (Antenna-gate as it was called) causing reception to degrade quicker than normal by just holding the phone in your hand in a normal way. Again each issue was on one phone.
LG has the best OLED displays I believe for TV monitors so I don’t understand why they can’t translate that know how to mobile devices. Boxes being shipped without the included parts is specifically a quality control issue and while even that can happen once in a while it shouldn’t happen to this many people.
No matter how you look at it, Google probably needs to publicly and privately address these issues because at this point it will begin to mar their name and reputation to create and develop quality devices. Public trust is important especially, since these are suppose to be high-end phones like Apple’s iPhone or Samsung’s Galaxy S series. Right now I just see them as expensive. These issues are far from what anyone should call “growing pains” and yes, I’ve heard someone call it that and I’m not buying it and neither should you. This is way below the level of quality that I believed “Made by Google” would be but this is just my opinion.
Wyatt's Tech Corner 