Cover your face: If you are shopping for or contemplating shopping for the brand new Pixel 7, pay attention to the glass overlaying over the digicam sensor. Many customers reported that the protecting cowl violently shattered for no purpose. To make issues worse, Google seems to be submitting complaints that are not lined below guarantee.
Last month, Pixel 7 customers started reporting unusual cracks within the glass that covers the telephone’s rear digicam lens. Reddit, Twitter, and Google’s assist boards are stuffed with complaints and photos of Pixels whose backs appear like they had been shot with a tiny pellet.
Most customers are confused by the breakage as a result of they declare they by no means dropped or bumped their telephone. Some say the glass shatters when it is in your pocket. According to Corning glass engineers, spontaneous shattering just isn’t unprecedented.
“There’s a layer of compressive stress, then a layer of central rigidity, the place the glass needs to press out, after which one other layer of compressive stress,” one engineer instructed Scientific American in 2013. If this delicate stability is not Just proper, and the strain can launch, inflicting a small outward explosion.
Some customers counsel temperature Variety Could be the catalyst for the issue. For instance, a consumer taking a telephone out and placing it in a heat pants pocket and exposing it to chilly winter temperatures could also be sufficient to trigger the glass to crack.
Not surprisingly, complaining Pixel 7 homeowners have discovered Google to be much less cooperative with the state of affairs. Four days in the past, a Redditor claimed a assist rep stated the guarantee did not cowl repairs. The consultant additionally instructed him that that is the primary criticism the corporate has acquired concerning the situation. However, experiences courting again so far as mid-December could be discovered on Twitter.
Additionally, customers have been asking the query a number of occasions on Google’s Pixel Phone assist discussion board since a minimum of December 9.One Twitter consumer even posted a screenshot of a member of Google’s assist crew, acknowledging (under) that the corporate was conscious of the problem however “determined to not embrace [the defect] as a part of the guarantee. [emphasis Google’s]”
So regardless of who the Redditor talked to, whether or not they had been mendacity or did not know that the experiences had been pouring into Google for a month, assist instructed the shopper it was a $200 restore.
Here’s direct proof from “the highest” @madebygoogle Pixel assist, they’re conscious of this situation. Just as a result of you have not seen it doesn’t suggest it isn’t an issue. Please rigorously take into account the authenticity of your tweets earlier than posting them. #pixel7brokencamera pic.twitter.com/6EgWiY6SE8
— Alex Hatzenbuhler (@ahatzz11) December 23, 2022
Broken digicam glass just isn’t an unknown downside for smartphones. Samsung has comparable points with the Galaxy S20. Google seems to be following the identical playbook.
Last yr, numerous Galaxy S20 customers reported spontaneous shattering of the rear digicam glass. Samsung continues to cost to restore defective telephone glass regardless of acknowledging that the breakage is brought on by a buildup of strain below the glass, moderately than consumer abuse or accident. Samsung stated it could not settle for guarantee repairs as a result of the injury was “beauty.”
It was subsequently hit with class motion lawsuits for fraud, breach of contract and violations of a number of shopper safety legal guidelines. Samsung provided to postpone the listening to on the grounds that among the listed plaintiffs didn’t decide out of the arbitration clause below the phrases of their contracts.
A choose agreed to place the case on maintain pending arbitration over the doubtless tens of millions of incidents, successfully delaying litigation indefinitely.
