The Pixel 2 XL, trademark phone of the tech-giant Google has already proven to have issues. Apart from the rather well-known issues of a muddy color and a grainy texture, another problem has been on the rise, which has been highlighted by those with the review units. There are pretty crazy levels of burn-in, just about after a week of use!
The screen burn-in is something which people with OLED screens should worry about. Now for those who don’t know what a screen burn is, here is a quick recap. When a portion of the display has the same screen for a specific time, this causes a “ghost” image of it to appear even after you switch to something else, changing the display. Mostly noticeable in the notification shade or status bar, this can also appear for navigation buttons or heck even home screen icons.
This issue is largely prevalent in OLED panels and usually, there are a few months of relief before the issue sprouts. You don’t have to confuse it with Image Retention. Image Retention is another word for Ghosting, which is basically that some part of the previous screen would still be visible, even after you change to something else. But, rather thankfully, this is not permanent and goes away after a short time on its own, and is mostly associated with the Quantum Dot Technology.
Since, the Pixel 2 XL, has been going through rough review for around a week, the screen gets a minimum of three hours always on time. This cannot surely lead to the thinking that all Pixels 2 XL’s will end up with a burn-in issue. As reported by the Android Central’s Alex Dobie :
That’s some pretty wild OLED burn-in on the Pixel 2 XL after maybe 7 days of full-time use pic.twitter.com/EPJTs6D0Kg
— Alex Dobie (@alexdobie) October 22, 2017
Though by far, several people have reported that if the phone screen is viewed with a gray background then one can see faint outlines of the phone’s navigation buttons on the bottom!
A Google spokesperson commented the following on this issue, while acknowledging the fact that Google is now aware of this issue and is actively investigating it: “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.”
The worrying this that even if it’s a screen burn-in and not just ghosting, then this shouldn’t have just appeared just under a week and that also for several people. This burn in issue, if comes usually takes several months or a year at least. But then the good news is that if anyone sees a screen burn-in on the Pixel 2 XL after a week or even a month, you are eligible for a free warranty replacement from your manufacturer. This is not the case with just Pixel 2 XL, but there were also warranty replacements for the 2016 Google Pixels, which had gone through screen burn-ins.
After reading this, please don’t try and download apps from the Google Play store, which promise to fix this issue, since it is clearly a hardware fault, not a software one!
Google Pixel 2 XL has already lost its image by such a widespread issue, and this screen burn-in problem might just end up being the deal breaker for many.