Everything That’s Wrong with the Google Pixel 2 and Pixel 2 XL
The Design: First and foremost, the biggest complaint that I have with the Google Pixel 2 and Pixel 2 XL is the design of the smartphones. Google was fully aware of the mockery that users were making of the original Pixel smartphones’ design. Instead of improving the design, Google actually gave us pretty much the same phone all over again in form of the Google Pixel 2. In case of the Pixel 2 XL, Google took matters from bad to worse as while it had a 18:9 display, the phone still featured slim bezels around the sides! Hidden Menu Button: The list of bugs on these new Pixel phones are endless. The Google Pixel 2 and Pixel 2 XL users are now reporting that their navigation bar has a ‘hidden menu button’ on the extreme right corner, tapping which is resulting in the hamburger menu opening up. Google is working on providing a fix for that issue too. You can take a look at the video below to get a better idea. Numerous Sound Issues: A number of users complained on Google’s product forums that their speakers are emitting a clicking or a wailing sort of a sound while on a call. Google has since had to issue a patch specifically for this problem. Durability: The one good thing about last years’ Pixel smartphones were that they were pretty durable and strong. Despite having the glaring flaw that they were not water resistant, the 2016 Pixel smartphones were stronger and more durable than this years’ device. Jerry Rig Everything, who tests phones for durability every year discovered just how fragile the phones are. You can take a look at it here. Here’s how screen burn-in looks like. Screen Burn-In: The Pixel 2 and Pixel 2 XL – flagship Android devices – you’d expect them to be among the best phones of this year, right? Turns out that the screens are burning-in in a matter of weeks. “Burning In”, for those who may not be aware of the term, is basically when an area of your screen appears brighter than the other area because a dark portion has been on top of it. This usually takes years, but is happening in just a matter of weeks on the Google Pixel 2 and Pixel 2 XL. It Charges Slow: Google has done a good job with the battery of the Pixel 2 XL which was one of the strongest cards in their deck. However, it turns out that there’s a flaw with the charging too. This is a problem specific to the Google Pixel 2 XL. The phone charges up to 2:30 hours to charge, which is ridiculously long a time for any phone to charge, let alone a flagship. This is primarily because the Pixel 2 XL uses a single stage of constant-current, followed by constant-voltage. The charging is capped at 10.5 Watts despite the charger actually supporting 18W. For more, here’s a detailed post.
