You might want to hold off on buying a Pixel 2 XL until Google addresses its screen issues.
Now that Google's new flagship Android phone is officially out and in people's hands, reports have come out that call into question the quality of its display. Pixel 2 XL owners took to social media to voice their complaints about discoloration and screen burn-in.
SEE ALSO:How Google's Pixel Buds will kill Apple AirPodsThe first issue Pixel 2 XL owners started noticing was the screen's inconsistent color temperature, most noticeable when viewing anything with a white background.
From a dead-on vantage point, the screen has a warm color temperature. But shift your position off-angle just a bit, and you'll notice the color temperature changes to a bluish tint. Mashablehas confirmed the color shifting on our Pixel 2 XL review unit and you can see it in the video below.
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The problem only appears to affect the larger 6-inch Pixel 2 XL and not the smaller 5-inch Pixel 2. It could be related to the type of OLED used on the Pixel 2 XL.
The Pixel 2 is manufactured by HTC and uses an AMOLED display made by Samsung. The Pixel 2 XL is made by LG and uses a P-OLED (the "p" stands for plastic) made by the company's display division.
The other, potentially more serious issue being reported is screen burn-in, which is when a "ghost-like" image lingers on the screen even when you've closed an app. Android Central'sAlex Dobie tweeted out this display flaw over the weekend:
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As you can see, the navigation bar has started to "burn" into the bottom portion of the screen, leaving behind a permanent outline. It may not seem so bad at first, and you may not even notice it on your phone's screen unless you carefully examine your display, but it's not the kind of thing you want.
While there are some real advantages to OLED displays over traditional LCDs -- they're thinner, more power efficient, brighter, and display more vibrant colors and deeper blacks -- they're also prone to defects like screen burn-in.
Even Samsung, the world's largest manufacturer of OLED displays, hasn't figured out how to perfect them. The Super AMOLED displays used in its Galaxy S8 and Note 8 phones are rated as the brightest screens for mobile devices by DisplayMate's Dr. Raymond Soneira, but they're still susceptible to burn-in.
To prevent burn-in from the screen's virtual home button, Samsung's programmed it to move by a few pixels every few seconds. It's not a perfect solution, but it does the trick. Apple's upcoming iPhone X won't have any such home button burn-in problem because there is no virtual home button (going to the home screen is now a gesture).
We also checked our Pixel 2 XL for screen burn-in using Android Central'shandy black and red test images and didn't see anything even though we've been using our device daily for over two weeks.
The screen problems may be isolated to a small batch of devices. Google told Mashable it's investigating the problem:
""The Pixel 2 XL screen has been designed with an advanced POLED technology, including QHD+ resolution, wide color gamut, and high contrast ratio for natural and beautiful colors and renderings. We put all of our products through extensive quality testing before launch and in the manufacturing of every unit. We are actively investigating this report."
That said, LG's OLED screens (for mobile, at least) are considered inferior to Samsung's. Ars Technica'sRon Amadeo observed inconsistent colors across the the LG V30's display, revealing its very real "banding" problems. The quality difference between LG and Samsung's screens is so wide it's no wonder Apple is stuck sourcing OLED screens for the iPhone X from Samsung. LG's OLED screens just don't cut it.
Moreover, LG's own phones with OLED screens have suffered from burn-in for years. The LG G Flex, the company's first phone with a flexible OLED display, was notorious for this defect.
"You can't eyeball mobile and TV display performance anymore; they are now significantly more complex with lots of internal modes and variables that need to be properly tested, measured, and evaluated," Dr. Soneira told me in an email. He declined to elaborate
It's a real dilemma what Google should do now. While nowhere near as urgent and dangerous an issue as the Galaxy Note 7 was for Samsung, some people think the company should recall the Pixel 2 XL until the problem has been fixed.
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The ball's in Google's court. The company can keep pretending it's not that big of a deal, or it can do the right thing and fix the display problems, even if it means losing sales this holiday season. Long term, if Google wants to topple Samsung as the premier maker of premium Android, it needs to make sure the Pixels aren't tainted with quality issues.
It took a decade for Apple and Samsung to perfect their phones and get a strong grip on the quality of their components. Google's just learning the hard way that it's not that easy to make phones.
UPDATE: Oct. 23, 2017, 1:56 p.m. EDT The original story said the Pixel 2 had an P-OLED display. It's been corrected to AMOLED.
TopicsAndroidGoogle
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