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My Pixel has a manufacturing defect

• dbg31415 10y ago
  Friend I work with has this same problem. Will pass this on and ask him to post pictures here. His phone is white, bubble is smaller and harder to notice but you can see it if you tilt the screen just right. He was complaining the other day because he took it back to where he bought it and they told him that he must have dropped it -- similar story -- and so they wouldn't let him exchange it.
• Waterluvian 10y ago
  That's quite a first sentence. I always felt that cases are expected and the design is based on letting the user decide what the case will be like.
  • Insanity 10y ago
    I am in the same camp as him actually. I dislike using a case and prefer to use the phone as it was (afaik) intended to be used. Cases change the weight and feel of the device. I also would like to add that in all my years of smartphone usage (probably about 4 years, quite late adopter) I never broke my phone or screen.
    • Retric 10y ago
      I did break a phone scene once by dropping it. But, running the numbers replacing it was actually cheaper than buying a new case for every phone, so IMO they are simply not worth it. A simple plastic screen protector might be, but those always get bubbles.
      • ericabiz 10y ago
        Tempered glass screen protectors have been out for years now. Applied correctly, they don't have bubbles, and they really do help with impact damage. They also help with keeping the screen protected against key/other sharp object scratches.
  • varjag 10y ago
    Some people keep their remotes in plastic wrap, doesn't mean that's expected. Sure there is a thriving aftermarket for phone cases that emerged in late 00s, but it is certainly not an expectation on the manufacturer side.
    • eli 10y ago
      Not just aftermarket, Google sells an official case
  • fdim 10y ago
    I expect manufacturer to take care of the case, custom ones just makes the phone thicker/heavier, but who knows - maybe in the future we will be buying 'case-less/naked' phones and 3rd party cases depending on the protection level needed. Thinking about, idea doesn't sound too bad.
• bluedino 10y ago
  Take it to some store I've never heard of? This is why I will only buy a phone from a brick and motar, or online from a place with a brick and mortar presence (Apple, Verizon, Best Buy)
  • Fnoord 10y ago
    Why don't they have some kind of postal address where the phone can be send to? The phone was send from one, why don't they have a return address for RMA? And, (FWIW, in NL) if it does fall under warranty, the additional S&H costs would be on the seller; not the buyer.
• rfrey 10y ago
  If Google wants to charge Apple iPhone prices, they can't continue with Google level service.
  • tamcap 10y ago
    That was literally my thought. Apple doesn't have the best customer service ever, but it's pretty decent and people that have warranties seem to leave happy. a) if the author speaks the truth (and I have no reason to believe otherwise) that the was never dropped - Google should fix it. That much is obvious. Now, the b). b) C'mon Google - you know the author is a techie / twitterer / reviewer - of all the people to annoy with customer service, is a person like that really the good choice? This incident clearly exposes non-positive elements in their customer support culture.
    • WhitneyLand 10y ago
      >Apple doesn't have the best customer service They don't? Who does then? Now if you want to say they're not perfect and they've had their problems, I would agree with that.
      • ghshephard 10y ago
        If you have a desktop computer, and particularly if you have a Server, Dell was pretty phenomenal (though I presume the same model was followed by HP as well). They will come on site, and, if you have an expedited warranty, they will come on site same day, sometimes within a few hours. When I ran IT, it was great to put a call into them, run through a bit of online troubleshooting, and then have them dispatch (separately for some odd reason) Parts and Labor to resolve the issue. Apple experimented with on-site support for a while, but it never really went anywhere. I guess they want you to come into their stores. On the flip side, Apple Service is so good that now our IT organization just tells their employees if they have any issue, just go to the Apple Store and work with them directly. So, something to be said about that. And, it's getting to the point that almost all of the major cities I travel too have some kind of Apple Authorized repair - even if they don't have an Apple Store yet.
• funnyfacts365 10y ago
  And now, after the PR shitstorm for reaching HN's frontpage, all will be solved in a couple hours...
  • 6stringmerc 10y ago
    Kind of with you on that one, but if "United Breaks Guitars" is an indication, sometimes large corporations don't learn on the first go around.
    • a3n 10y ago
      Nor do consumers.
      • 6stringmerc 10y ago
        Having worked enough retail and waiter gigs over the years, I can completely agree, and try my best, in my personal life, not to imitate some of the terribly selfish and/or manipulative behaviors I've seen customers pull to get what they want. Two way street indeed.
  • quickben 10y ago
    It is sad how the best way to reach Google's support is through their pr department.
  • vesinisa 10y ago
    The sad part here is that these phones cost like $200 (edit: sorry, read $20) to manufacture per unit. The $750 price tag is mostly in the SW and supporting infra. The guy talking for a couple of hours with customer support actually soon becomes more expensive for the company than just taking their word for it and shipping a replacement. And that's before you count in the brand devaluation when the guy finds out their 'premium service' is just thin air, and especially the PR damage once you happen to screw a tech reporter over. Where I live most home insurance companies have adopted a better approach to customer service. They maintain a central registry of claims. Most of the time if you submit a claim they just pay you without requiring any proofs of damage or receipts. But once you start abusing the system (unusually large or high number of claims), they will get difficult. But for the honest, average guy the customer service experience is just phenomenal most of the time (submit claim online and receive insurance to bank account only hours later.) The brand value for having a 'nice' insurance company exceeds the small number of invalid claims that happen to slip through in the process.
• shakna 10y ago
  Waiting to see when this crops up here, and how it'll fly considering Consumer Rights [0]. It falls into minor, so Google will have to: * free repair, (with a repair notice describing the fault) * replacement (must be the same condition as the purchase, so no second hand!) * refund (the same amount you have already paid, provided in the same form as your original payment.) And of course, the kicker: > You are entitled to return a product if you believe that there is a problem. And the business you purchased from has to foot the costs of said return. All of these things are things Google has tried very hard to avoid, but they're selling the Pixel here, so they have to play by the consumer-oriented laws. It'd be interesting. [0] https://www.accc.gov.au/consumers/consumer-rights-guarantees/repair-replace-refund https://www.accc.gov.au/consumers/consumer-rights-guarantees...
  • grennis 10y ago
    You probably could mention where "here" is.
    • Terretta 10y ago
      They did mention: .au
    • adrusi 10y ago
      Australia, judging by TLD
    • shakna 10y ago
      The link points to the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission. Sorry if that wasn't clear.
  • cobookman 10y ago
    * replacement (must be the same condition as the purchase, so no second hand!) I believe apple & att will replace the broken phone with a manufacture refurbished device.
    • shakna 10y ago
• lgeek 10y ago
  I'm not saying that he's necessarily dropped it or that it's okay for the CS rep to have accused him of that, but my 4+ year old Galaxy S3 has the same sort of bubbles in two corners on which it has been dropped so I get why that was the first question asked.
  • tdkl 10y ago
    Isn't there a burden of proof to claim the device was dropped ? If there's no visible damage from a supposed impact, then any company can just use this as an excuse.
    • AstralStorm 10y ago
      No they cannot under EU law, they have to demonstrate damage came from an impact.
• annerajb 10y ago
  Scary This days i rather pay a good premium if it has better support. On the good side my Nexus 5x broke 1 week before it's 1 year warranty expired. Apart from the hassle of them not shipping replacement to Puerto Rico they sent me a 1 day replacement. After forwarding from Florida to Puerto Rico +4days. it was a brand new phone and didn't give me any trouble I did have to spent like 5 days without phone while I did their troubleshooting steps. I missed the days I had sprint where I would just go to the store and be out with a phone in a few hours.
• eganist 10y ago
  If Google won't repair a manufacturing defect, consider a chargeback (assuming you bought it from Google). Services like American Express have purchase protection, but the limits I believe won't be enough to cover the Pixel. If you were sold a lemon and Google won't hash it out, go ahead and let the card company fight that battle for you. If enough people start doing this, you can bet Google will double down on customer service as proper cost avoidance.
  • fsckin 10y ago
    Initiating a chargeback is tantamount to terminating your Google Account at a random time in the future when they find in your favor.
    • eganist 10y ago
      ...hmm, you're likely right, but I'm actually quite curious to see if anyone's willing to challenge that in court if it happens given that Google doesn't really give anyone an easy way to migrate an entire life to another service.
      • chillydawg 10y ago
        Google will let you export all your data. Google "google takeout".
        • eganist 10y ago
          Nice. My google-fu's failing me on finding any services which can import some amount of it and re-establish equivalent services, which suggests either some important details are missing (e.g. account configs) and/or no one's seen a business case for setting up that kind of migration service with any of the other major platforms e.g. Microsoft's cloud apps. Heh
          • sipos 10y ago
            The latter I think.
• brador 10y ago
  Some tablets also have this issue. We had it with the Iconia W700p tablet line from Acer. Bubbles form at random under the digitizer (months to years, single small bubble to multiple large bubbles). They move when heat is applied and over time, hinting that it's a digitizer glue issue as the product produces heat it is not capable of handling.
• sickbeard 10y ago
  Customer service people aren't experts (even the higher level ones). They have scripts, list of defects and how to help you resolve them. This "bubble" is obviously something they have never seen before, unless a 1% of the phones start having this issue they will just blame you for it.
• Lazare 10y ago
  It's a persistent story: Google reliably has the worst customer support of any large company, to the point that Comcast or your local DMV starts to look good in comparison. It's impressive, in its own way. And as long as their consumer facing products were things like free webapps, they could get away with it. ...but if they want to sell a premium-priced handset, they can't get away with it. It's a USD$750 phone, come on. Telling the user that it's probably just a non-existent screen protector?
  • AlexB138 10y ago
    Very true. I use Google Fi, but am about to drop it because the support has been horrible. They're friendly, but I constantly miss calls and their support's solution is to ask me to get another working phone to test with and spend a couple of hours filling out diagnostic tests and bug reports. They are also unwilling to do something as simple as send me a new SIM card until I do this. This, along with they they gave the middle finger to the Nexus line, has turned me from a strong Google supporter into someone who will give a second thought before considering using their services.
    • carlisle_ 10y ago
      This is exactly my experience with Project Fi. I started having major problems staying connected to a cell phone tower and they were asking me to spend so much time troubleshooting. I have a full time job, my phone wasn't staying connected to a cell tower in downtown SF for more than 15-30 seconds at a time. I was having a ton of anxiety and Project Fi support was content to let me do their troubleshooting for them. It was very frustrating and Project Fi is still unreliable as hell! You've galvanized me, I'm getting rid of Project Fi, I'm done with this. WiFi SMS isn't worth this crap.
      • cgvgffyv 10y ago
        Get an iPhone. Christ. It's almost as if you people enjoy suffering for the sake of it.
    • tuxracer 10y ago
• Tech1 10y ago
  I'm a pixel xl 128 owner too. As long as we're going down this route, has anyone else noticed weird 'refresh' lines drawing over top of images? They appear very briefly and very faintly (and only in chrome as far as I've noticed, may be a chrome(ium) bug).
• sathackr 10y ago
  My droid Turbo 2 (with the 'indestructable' screen) is doing the same thing. I thought it was a defect, but I had to replace the phone for a different reason(went swimming with it) and the new replacement is doing the same thing. It seems like the top layer of the screen is not adhering well. I can make it go away for a couple of weeks by just pressing it back on with a fingernail and a good bit of pressure. Verizon told me to call Motorola, but I haven't bothered yet.
• hifier 10y ago
  This is what happens when you do business with a company who views you as the product.
• kutkloon7 10y ago
  Sorry for my pessimistic views, but I think big companies always have had the power to screw over anyone they want. This is especially the case in the US, where it seems to be quite accepted for companies to screw you over. Almost all countries lack an easy option for non-billionaires to take action against big companies. If you go to court, they will deliberately make the costs too high to pay for normal people, and even when the company is wrong, they will usually win the case. In the best case scenario, they will settle, and you become rich by being screwed over.
  • protomyth 10y ago
    Well, considering Apple wants me to pay to fix a manufacturing defect in the iPhone 6, I have to agree. I will say HP was cool with fixing a lot of netbooks when we had 100 out of 120 failures. Basically, American consumers yell on social media or popular boards, wait for the class action suit to force a fix, or go without.
  • riprowan 10y ago
    > Almost all countries lack an easy option for non-billionaires to take action against big companies. Fix this, fix the world.
  • cookiecaper 10y ago
    I absolutely support reform of the legal and court system so that it's affordable for normal people. Large companies routinely bully small innovators with legal threats and dubious suits, which the smaller groups can't fight because they don't have the money; they would go bankrupt first (and do when they try to fight anyway). It's not even legal for the founder of a company to try to represent himself in court (companies cannot be pro se litigants). That badly needs to be repaired. However, let's not forget that there are many consumers looking to screw over companies too. There are many consumers who would drop/damage their device and then try to pass the damage off as a manufacturer defect. Laws that require companies to accept a return and furnish a full refund and/or new replacement based solely on the consumer's belief that there's an issue, like the one quoted above, incur large losses in fraudulent claims. In the US, the issue is voluntary; it's possible for companies to sell things without warranty, and it's possible for the consumer to make the choice to buy from such a vendor, and IMO that's how it should be. There may not be a lot of sympathy for a big conglomerate like Google getting hit with false defect claims, but it doesn't just affect them. Most small businesses deal with many obstinate customers daily, and the policies that have been formulated to allow consumers to ding large companies out of spite are much more damaging to a new company starting out. This is the case with credit card chargebacks, for example, which are a massive source of fraud against businesses (which cost more than a full refund, because they also incur a chargeback fee from the card processor).
• ldev 10y ago
  Well, next time just buy an iPhone, the price is the same...
  • protomyth 10y ago
    and get screwed by Apple when they have a manufacturing defect and want you to pay for the fix. See http://money.cnn.com/2016/11/18/technology/apple-repair-touch-disease-problem/ http://money.cnn.com/2016/11/18/technology/apple-repair-touc...
• protomyth 10y ago
  At some point a NTSB style part of government is going to be created to issue recalls on defective electronics if companies keep this crap up. I expect it to happen after the first IoT device defect affects a politician directly. I don't want to see that because of possible affects on open source, but I get the feeling that won't matter.
• lightedman 10y ago
  Moxee has the EXACT same problem. The glass is so thin and not secured on properly, so when the phone heats up, the glass cracks where the adhesive failed. So looks like the lesson to learn here is do not buy Google or Moxee-branded products.
• JoeAltmaier 10y ago
  My friends Grandpa (I know, hearsay) couldn't wear a regular watch, because the innards would become green goo in a couple of weeks and the watch would be ruined. So some people may just be out of luck on this one.
  • johnhenry 10y ago
    Please expand further?
    • JoeAltmaier 10y ago
      Not a lot more to say. Was it skin Ph? Some kind of acid sweat? He apparently didn't sweat a lot or anything. He didn't work in a manual labor job that exposed him to anything - he was a publisher (Garden Way magazine). The works of the watch would corrode green and that was it.
      • adrienne 10y ago
        I know at least two people who have a similar issue, including one who can't even wear most jewelry except very pure precious metals because her skin corrodes it (i don't mean the usual "turns your finger green" thing, i mean black and pitting). I've seen the results, it's amazingly weird.
  • tomcam 10y ago
    Possibly the most mysterious post I have ever read on this site.
• npstr 10y ago
  My experience with Google Customer Support in Germany: I had a Nexus 5 with a broken dispaly (my fault), that also at one point after about 1 year and 9 months of usage got that nasty sticky on/off-button issue where it would be stuck in a bootloop with no means of me accessing it. The broken on/off-button is clearly a manufactoring defect. German laws demand that all stuff has to work properly for at least 2 years, if used correctly by the user. So when I phoned Google about fixing that button I also mentioned that I had a crack in the display, but the display was working perfectly fine, and what I want them to fix is obviously only the button that's been a big issue on the internet and not related to the display crack, and not fix the display. Google then proceeded to tell me, that their warranty would not cover that, I need first to get the display fixed on my own cost, before they would fix the button (which they admitted is definitely a manufacturing defect). This is absurd. Here's a shitty analogy: Imagine you buy a toaster, and it's button stops working. You also made a minor scratch on it's hull. So the company making the toaster refuses to fix it's button unless you fix that scratch first. Ridiculous. German legal stuff: In Germany, you have two choices when your product shows a manufacturing defect before the two years are over: Demand a brand new product, or a demand a repair from the dealer (not the manufactorer, thank god I bought my nexus at the play store and not at some shitty dealer). If two repairs don't fix your product or the dealer declines to fix/give you a new product you may demand the (usually) full price back. Let's call this German 2-year-protection the legal warranty. There is some minor stuff involved about proving that it actually is a manufacturer defect (first half year the dealer has to prove it isn't, last one and a half years you have to prove that it is), but this wasn't an issue as Google had already confirmed to me that it indeed is a manufacturers defect, which I had asked them to confirm me in an email. Some dealers may try to trick you demanding expensive 3rd party surveys of the problem during that second phase where you have to prove it, thus scaring many customers away from executing their rights. Sadly this works in many cases, while the only 'proof' you would actually need is to say that you always used the device to its specifications, an expensive 3rd survey is just overkill. So, what Google does is, they offer an additional, voluntary guarantee (I'm gonna call it like this because in German it is called "Garantie", while it usually in English is called warranty, to differentiate from the legal warranty which we call "Gewährleistung"). That's that little booklet that you usually find in the original package of your phone saying something along the lines of 'warranty for some stuff, but not water damage and not broken displays'. German laws say that additional, voluntary guarantees like this are super awesome and totally allowed and stuff but they may never touch any rights that you have from that legal two-year-warranty. So, Googles process of executing their additional guarantee is usually that they immediately send you a brand new/refurbished phone, while you have a couple of weeks to send them your old one. They require you to provide a credit card, and it will be charged full price of a new phone if you don't send your old one in/it happens to not fulfill their requirements for their additional guarantee (this is pretty brash imo btw, personally I used an empty prepaid credit card in case they were going to bitch about my phone when I finally was allowed to send it in). Note that they do not have implemented a process to handle repairs. You will always get a different, brand new/refurbished phone than your old one. And this is where they clash with German law. While I theoretically could be a bitch and demand them to repair my specific device, and get the full price back because they wouldn't be able to, I did not. I said I'm willing to adapt to their existing processes, and allow them to send me that brand new/refurbished phone instead of doing a prefered repair. This conveniently would also mean I get a crack free display as a result of the process. But that is not my fault. I'd have been happy to have only the button repaired, but it's entirely Google fault that this was not possible. So, the clerks at the phone were trying to keep me from sending that phone in, because Google doesn't want to eat all these probably very frequent display damages, while it is their own fault that they do. Also not a single of the phone clerks I reached (3 calls in total over several weeks) did knew of that legal two-year warranty, they were always refusing to give me a retour label or even an address to manually send the phone in referencing their additional guarantee that does not cover display damage (which, again, I was always emphasizing, was not what I wanted to be repaired). All of them admitted that they had not been taught about the German law of legal warranty, not even the supervisors. So what I did is I set up a registered letter citing all the paragraphs by which I demanded a repair, or if not possible a new device, or if not possible my money back. Weeks of phoning did nothing, but two days after sending the letter I had that retour label without further comment in my inbox and everything went smoothly after that (with additional precaution of mine using an empty prepaid card; pretty sure that practice of Google is illegal by German laws too, but I had my low effort work around). This happened during the fall of 2015. Refurbished phone is working alright. Additional benefit for the customer of getting a new device instead of a repair: your legal two-year warranty is reset.
• ssijak 10y ago
  Google support and customer relationship is horrible. One day I enabled Youtube partnership out of curiosity (it was enabled for my country so I enabled it than on my account to see what it is about). Few days later I tried to login to my adsense account only to find it disabled! Problem is I have never enabled adsense on any website, I do not have or post youtube videos, or have done anything to violate the terms. I am paying customer of gsuit, gcloud, google music, adwords, etc. I first tried with adsense complaint form, there are 2 of them, one if your account is disabled for invalid activity and one if you violated policies. I tried with invalid activity form because that is what my adsense login page says why my account is banned (evene when I do not have adsense enabled anywhere), but I get automated answer every time that the account is not disabled for invalid activity but for policy reasons and that is that. When I try the policy form, it sends automated answer that the account is disabled for invalid activity and that they can not investigate further... Because I am paying customer of gsuit I tried support there. Guy from support tried for almost a week to get any human support from google regarding my case and he could not!!! Imagine that, support guy for a paying customer could not get help from inside his own company. That is such a fail for Google. He directed me in the end to the Youtube team to appeal there and wished me good luck. Google must do something about it, this customer relationship is so bad. Why would I continue to pay for their other services if I can expect that they can ban me from them for no reason and without explanation or support?!
  • smcl 10y ago
    Thing is, google has enough customers and makes enough money they probably don't need to do something about it. It frustrates the hell out of me, but that's sadly how it is. Related: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2016-12-08/google-makes-so-much-money-it-never-had-to-worry-about-financial-discipline https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2016-12-08/google-ma...
  • pwg 10y ago
    > Why would I continue to pay for their other services if I can expect that they can ban me from them for no reason and without explanation or support?! Exactly. Which should be a huge hint to get yourself off of google services and thereby stop paying them. Like all big corps. their feedback loop consists of: customer continues to pay -> everything must be ok
• sergiotapia 10y ago
  Just like everything related to Google their support sucks ass. It's why I won't use their new Domain registration service, why would I pay money to hop through automated support hoops. They are automated to a fault, and people still fall for it.
• martin-adams 10y ago
  Microsoft did a similar thing to me with the Surface Book. It wouldn't charge properly and they tried to blame me. Fortunately for me I got a free Surface Book out of the mistake! https://youtu.be/xShbqpPW65I https://youtu.be/xShbqpPW65I
• jdavis703 10y ago
  I have to add an anecdotal counter point to the Google support is so terrible line. My Nexus 6P had a screen defect (couldn't detect touches anymore). I called support and 20 minutes later they were shipping me a new phone and a box to send in my damaged phone. I also had to contact them for support on their DFP product. Received an email back a couple of hours later with a detailed explanation of what was happening that answered all my questions. Maybe I'm just an outlier, or maybe people don't write about their good support experiences.
  • justin66 10y ago
    The good experiences don't especially matter in evaluating the quality of a support organization, the outliers do. It kind of goes without saying that any support organization will not completely hose everyone who calls. Most cases are easy, most people on the front lines know what they're doing well enough to handle the easy cases, most supervisors can spot a mistake and fix things. That's not excellence, that's the baseline. The difficulty involved in the outlier cases getting a proper escalation up the chain of command to someone empowered to make the right decision is how to measure the value of a support organization.
• andr 10y ago
  This is certainly an area where tech companies can learn from retail. You've probably heard of the Nordstrom employee who allowed a customer to return a Bloomingdale's purchase. And it's no isolated accident - stores, hotels and other experience-oriented businesses give their employees a per-incident budget to make things right for the customer, even if it's entirely the customer's fault. It's another question how to do that at scale and over the internet.
• ohyoutravel 10y ago
  This is pretty disturbing. I have a nexus 5x on Fi and would love a Pixel, but because of stories by this I haven't upgraded. Since I'm on Fi, I'm kind of stuck with Google phones unless I switch. But Fi is too friendly for international travel and data rates, and it's cheap generally.
  • op00to 10y ago
    I am an Apple user primarily for support reasons, but I have never heard of someone having this problem with a Pixel. You are probably safe from experiencing this problem if you decide to buy it. If you buy the phone with a good credit card, you can get an extra year of warranty service too.
• vacri 10y ago
  Something about the story doesn't smell right. The defect is probably genuine, but comparing "I baby my phone" against the weathered-looking edging?
  • imchillyb 10y ago
    The edge directly under the bubble looks heavily scratched/scuffed and it appears a different tone coloration than the rest of the plastic edge, which suggests a failed buffing to remove said scratches. The edge of the bubble also appears as if there was contact with an abrasive surface, IE concrete or asphalt. I do not believe that this was a manufacturing defect, not after viewing those photographs of the affected area. http://imgur.com/a/PN2CV http://imgur.com/a/PN2CV
• warrenmiller 10y ago
  The Pixel also has a major camera problem: https://productforums.google.com/forum/m/?utm_medium=email&utm_source=footer#!msg/phone-by-google/9W8AiqBIg3c/RlUdQngRDQAJ https://productforums.google.com/forum/m/?utm_medium=email&u...
• X86BSD 10y ago
  First google is no apple. Don't expect that level of service. They simply don't care. Second it's not just with their new phone the pixel they support poorly. Try having problems with google fiber. The stories of them taking a year and a half or over two years to deploy fiber 400 feet or to a house next to a house with it or an apartment already wired for it is insane. I don't think they have they really care about supporting their services or products. They just want you use them so they can monitize your data. Beyond that they aren't interested and it shows. Their core soul is how to make money off data. That's it. Making the pixel was just another finger to capture more data. Android is a tire fire IMO. Google fiber is fast but pray nothing goes wrong. Any of their other services and you're pretty much on your own. I don't think google deserves to be anywhere as large as it is. But time will tell if they are able to stay relevant.
  • eli 10y ago
    Aren't they officially backing away from fiber?
    • ajmurmann 10y ago
      Yes, they made a ridiculous marketing speak non-announcement about that about a month or two back.
      • X86BSD 10y ago
        Yes, it was odd. They are still rolling out in the cities they are in but have given up expanding to other cities. As usual I think they just don't have the will to power through the issues to keep deploying in city after city. Or they are not making as much money off google fiber subscribers data as they thought and it's not worth it anymore. Or they can't find people to actually do the infrastructure construction they need. Hence two years or more just to get service no matter how close it is. But again I expect this from google, I have never been impressed with anything they have done. Sadly.
        • sipos 10y ago
• parfe 10y ago
  Wonder what the odds are a phone review blogger receives a defective flagship device.
• donretag 10y ago
  "but in fact had never taken the plastic “screen protector” off of the display when I received the device" Notwithstanding the awful condescending tone from the CS rep, I once did actually have this issue. I purchased a cheap smart phone for an around the world trip since my CDMA/Sprint phone would not work overseas. I knew that the camera would not be iphone quality, but I felt that the images (8MP) could have been better. A couple of weeks into my trip, I discovered the thin plastic protector on the lens. Images were much better after it was removed!
  • tzs 10y ago
    I've seen devices where there was no mention in the "unpacking and setting up" section of the manual that you should remove the protector, and there was no tab or flap sticking out to make it obvious to do so. Given that there is a thriving market for third party screen protectors, it is not unreasonable in such a case for the consumer to think, "Cool! They included a screen protector so I don't have to go buy one myself!" and leave it on.
    • donretag 10y ago
      People read the manual? ;)
• cybernytrix 10y ago
  This seems to be cultural at Google. Apart from this, there are many instances that I've been hit by their "we know best, just deal with it" mentality. AMP debacle comes to mind.
• csallen 10y ago
  As a counter data point, my Pixel XL's speakers started malfunctioning about 3 weeks after I bought it. I called customer support, waited on hold for about 10 minutes, went through a series of debugging steps with the guy on the phone ("Have you tried restarting the device?"), and then they shipped me a replacement for free. Also important to realize that the denominator matters. Seeing a murder on TV every day doesn't necessarily mean that the world is in chaos. And seeing a couple of anecdotes about an issue doesn't necessarily mean it's widespread. That said, if I were the OP I'd be pissed and blogging about it, too.
  • vinay427 10y ago
    This was about equivalent to my experiences with the Nexus 4 and Nexus 5, which is why I was also mildly surprised with this post. They even adopted an unofficial one-time accidental damage replacement policy after a while.
    • csallen 10y ago
      People with good experiences don't write angry blog posts, so those data points are often left out of the discussion.
      • justin66 10y ago
        Those data points don't matter. A customer service organization that only wastes the time and money of some of its customers, with no escalation path to get a proper resolution, is still horrible. It doesn't matter that it worked for you.
        • vinay427 10y ago
          (Not the user you replied to.) I agree, but I think that it's difficult to accurately evaluate the quality of a customer service department with these anecdotes because every large company will have the occasional misstep. I have personally heard of bad stories from every company mentioned in this thread that supposedly has good customer support. What's less obvious is whether there is a bias between different types of users. I'm just throwing out a theory here, but perhaps Pixel users are more technologically minded than iPhone users (this wouldn't surprise me) and so they are more publicly vocal about their issues because they are more invested. For instance, Nexus devices were probably more common among Android developers and reporters on blog sites, so Nexus problems were important to them and were popularized by the online media more than an equivalent problem would be in a more mass-market phone that might be popular in a different country. tl;dr Every company has had missteps, and I don't think anecdotes provide a clear picture by which to rank them.
• imchillyb 10y ago
  That phone was dropped. Deep scratches are clearly visible, as are bits of concrete or asphalt that are embedded between the glass and the bezel. The coloration of the plastic bezel is changed where a /buff-job/ was done in an attempt to remove said scratches. That is a human error problem, not a manufacturer defect issue. I hope they take you to task for lying so blatantly and attempting to stir up trouble. If you've damaged their brand, I certainly hope they sue you for libel. --- In case OP deletes the original pictures: http://imgur.com/a/PN2CV http://imgur.com/a/PN2CV ---
  • justin66 10y ago
    Oh, bullshit. That's lint or something, and those scratches are totally normal. Buffing leaves circular scratches. It looks better than most phones that have been in use more than a week or two.
    • sigmaml 10y ago
      To my eyes, they don't at all look "totally normal". That is the wear and tear you would develop after several months (or even years) of normal use. In this case, the phone does look as if it had either a hard fall, or a hard hit against something.
      • justin66 10y ago
        The person I was responding to was claiming that the guy had buffed the plastic, which is obviously crazy. All I can say in response to your claim that it looks like the phone has had rough use is that I'm pretty sure most of my phones with plastic edges were worn more than that very quickly, through normal use. In addition to the defect the guy called them about I see unscratched glass, unscratched metal, lint, and some abrasions on one of the three edges of plastic that don't go deep at all (I bet you couldn't feel them) which are probably only visible because the phone is being lit from above. None of this is a big deal.
  • NateyJay 10y ago
    It's not clear cut. That stuff in the seam could be finger gunk and dust. The 'discoloration' looks like a natural result of the curved bezel and uneven light.
• deleted 10y ago
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• sabujp 10y ago
  Yes, I agree the service was terrible, but if you can afford a $750 phone, you can afford to buy another one, and if you can't then you shouldn't have purchased a $750 phone. I buy my tech (esp. phones) cheap and hold onto it for years.
• novaleaf 10y ago
  To contrast, here's my experience with the Moto G4 I bought from Amazon: 1) Ordered a G4, free 2 day delivery, see that occasionally when it gets hot, it freaks out and registers false taps. RMA'd to amazon. RMA'd to amazon and a replacement arrived in about 2 days. 2) Replacement G4 spontanously reboots every day or two. RMA'd to Amazon and a replacement arrived in about 2 days. 3) New replacement works fine. I'm honestly a little worried about the fact that the first two devices had defects (they arn't supposed to be refurbished or anything), but given a 1 year warranty and ease of RMA, I'm still a pretty happy customer
• hagope 10y ago
  Mine does too, I'm on the phone with Verizon ordering a replacement. My problem, the audio just went out all of a sudden with a pop when I was on a call. Now none of the audio works. I started with Support on Google, they were good, then I transferred to Verizon, they were good too.
  • Lewisham 10y ago
    I had a Pixel which literally slipped half an inch to the floor and the screen cracked. Verizon told me that it was damage that I did and thus they wouldn't replace it. I complained that no phone should just crack from such a small fall; that the phone isn't made right if that happens. No dice. Had to replace the screen. Which I did. Then I returned it for an iPhone SE. And that iPhone has survived much harder drops with no damage whatsoever.
    • jc4p 10y ago
      How much did you pay to get it replaced? Did you use ubreakifixit? My Pixel died in a similar way, fell out of my hand while pulling out of my pocket, fell on the floor, screen dead. I went back to my iPhone 6s but the day after my Pixel died my Daydream headset arrived and I'd really like to try it at least once...
      • Lewisham 10y ago
        ubreakifixit is the only place that can do a glass replacement and keep it with warranty. If your screen is dead, and not just your glass cracked, I don't know. A screen replacement was $160.
• e40 10y ago
  It's not the first bad story of Pixel support I've ready, and for the money you have to pay for a Pixel, I think it's a deal killer for me. I will say that I had my Nexus 5 replaced twice, the last time was on the last possible day of the year warranty (I didn't realize it until the guy told me I'd called a few hours before my support ran out). Both times I got a new unit (refurb that was like new?) sent to me, before I sent my 5 back. Once I got the new 5, I boxed up and send the old one back. I would have had to pay for the new phone had I not returned it after 30 days. My question: why don't they do this with the Pixel? Was this part of the Nexus support plan?
  • bdcravens 10y ago
    My understanding is that the Pixel is different than the Nexus: it's not a "developer" device, it's in the standard consumer channel, so return policies are typically based on the carrier.
• sigmaml 10y ago
  From the image at the top of the article, to me at least, it does look as if the phone had a hard fall or a hard strike against something. The upper edge of the phone looks quite chequered.
• alkonaut 10y ago
  Compare this to buying a Samsung TV (exactly the same product only the screen is larger) - they answer the phone right away and are at your house with a friendly service guy in 1-2days. They should obviously just take the phone and give him a replacement. If they saw obvious signs he dropped it they could just send him the bill. This is a premium product (on the sticker). The service doesn't feel premium.
• kbd 10y ago
  This is one of the most practical reasons why I always intend to own an iPhone. If I have a problem I can walk down to the Apple store in my local mall and get it fixed. Recently, the battery in my old iPhone 5 was starting to swell. I got it replaced in a few hours. If I had an Android phone, I have no idea the hoops I'd have to go through. A cell phone is an essential at this point and it's not worth using any brand but the most reliable and easy-to-get-fixed.
• ak217 10y ago
  To be fair, I've had the opposite experience with Google Play Store support for my Nexus 5. I'm on my 4th Nexus 5 chassis, the previous 3 were taken back by Google (one broken glass, one sticky power button, and one water intrusion taken back due to a one time courtesy replacement policy). I don't feel great nor terrible about the phone, but clearly Google has spent substantial resources supporting my purchase. My phone calls with them were always very fast and to the point. (Their new hardware division in charge of Pixel may be doing things differently though.)
• intrasight 10y ago
  >don’t like cases because it takes away from the premium build and feel One forsakes a case at one's own peril. No matter how much you "baby" your small, fragile, expensive phone, it's an accident waiting to happen if you don't have a case.
  • lcmatt 10y ago
    Or you just mishandle your devices. Never had a case/screen protector or anything on every device I've ever owned and they're all still spotless (my iphone 6 is 2 years old and I still get comments regarding how new it looks). Look after the device and don't go throwing it around.
    • intrasight 10y ago
      Sure. But my point is that "accidents" happen. Would you choose not to have health insurance because you never "mishandle" your body?
• dangero 10y ago
  This is something I cannot understand about Google and I think definitely needs to change. Here's the absolutely great thing about customer support that Google hasn't grasped yet: You let your customers talk to you and in turn you get the chance to remedy their problems and allow them to love your brand more. If you're getting a lot of support calls then you can know customers want something fixed and aren't happy. It's a feedback loop that in the end strengthens your brand. Apple has proven this. Since Google has the money, I cannot understand why they don't get this.
• Tempest1981 10y ago
  Can't you take a Pixel phone to Verizon for replacement? I thought Pixel was exclusive to Verizon.
  • rspeer 10y ago
    No, Pixel is not exclusive to Verizon. Verizon may be the only carrier with a promotion for the Pixel, but on other carriers (or on Google Fi) you can just buy a Pixel from Google and put your sim card in it.
• davidf18 10y ago
  Very sorry to hear anyone going through this kind of trouble, but at least for US users and most readers of HN, they should be getting up-to-date iPhones on the Verizon network. The costs are minimal and it helps to avoid hassles. I've had iPhone 5, 5s, 6+, 6s+, 7+, ever since iPhone had LTE on Verizon. Each phone version is an improvement on previous models and the Verizon models are now much improved over the ATT/T-mobile, using the Qualcomm baseband modem over the Intel version. But Verizon has more spectrum in NYC at least and they have been investing in their network whereas AT&T has not been so much. There are yearly upgrade programs offered by Apple and Verizon and perhaps others. That said, I've had to bring iPhones into the store and they were replaced 3 times. The store is 10 mins from home and work and the service is excellent. The only time there are problems with getting phone support generally is after they release the new iPhones in late Sept. I've also had great service on Mac laptops since 2011. If for some reason, you must use Android, then by all means.... But if for some reason, you do not absolutely have to use Android, then iPhone on the Verizon network is the way to go. As for shopping, at least in my local store, it is very easy to just purchase something. If you want, you can also purchase things for in-store pickup. In NYC where I live there is an Apple Store open 24/367 which shows Apple's dedication to service.
  • davidf18 10y ago
    Instead of down voting, why don't you state specifically why you don't agree???
    • Dylan16807 10y ago
      You're stating a product preference like an objective fact, ignoring the many many reasons to want different hardware, OS, or network.
• WhitneyLand 10y ago
  The "easy" part of great support is top down commitment, and investing good money. The hard part is spending it optimally so it produces real value. For example, do Google call center reps make $20/hr like Apple reps or close to minimum wage? Hire a little less, and pay a little more to avoid cable company quality. How to make do with less reps? Use a fantastically convenient online system and drive people to it. Use machine learning to detect when a ticket should be immediately escalated to a real supervisor, or actually to an exec or the product team. Constant social media scan and preemptively open tickets or escalate based on content. All reps required to maintain a satisfaction review score of >= x. This rule would require empowering them to make good faith decisions as in case above.
• deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]
• mbrameld 10y ago
  Would a small claims court suit be a reasonable way to get relief here?
• joecool1029 10y ago
  Would love to hear if someone actually has had a positive support experience with Google. My company has faced a bug in their location dashboard for over a year. We support local businesses and often get asked to update their Google business details. We're unable to delegate location dashboard access inside our Apps domain. My partner can send the invite to any gmail account, but can't send access to me inside the company. I can't even access my own company's panel through my paid Apps account. We've had calls, emails, sent tweets. Repeatedly asked for supervisors or for the issue to be forwarded to an engineer. The typical response is to get blamed or deal with support confusion in India over what we're trying to achieve. The end result of 'partner' support? They gave a 2 hour notice over a major rebrand to GSuite. The only way they could do it better is send us a postcard simply saying 'FUCK YOU!', and in smallprint 'but thanks for your money and information'. As said in other threads on this topic, Comcast offers better support. That's telling.
  • Yhippa 10y ago
    n=1 but I've had many good experiences with Google so far. I'm a Project Fi user and their support has been very good. Now some of Google's processes are subpar and have caused me to have to use their support (for this and other products) but in general they've made things right. Amazon's is some of the best I've used. Apple's can be good but I have had some poor experiences with them that have knocked them down a peg or two. The jury is out on Uber for me. I've had to fight to get some stuff fixed or done right but they eventually get it done.
  • throwaway70341 10y ago
    I have had mostly positive support experiences for Google Cloud. Granted, my employer is a big customer so Google is making a lot of money out of the relationship, and gcloud is a new and growing platform that you can tell Google is actively investing in (unlike say, Gmail). High-priority support tickets typically get a very fast response, although it may take several days to debug the issue and fully resolve it. The technical support people are very open about infrastructure issues on their side (although sometimes they don't publicly announce them as early as I'd like). They sometimes even help debug issues in our code when we determine that the problem isn't on Google's side. We get invited to participate in user feedback meetings (through Google Hangouts of course). During these, we make feature requests that often eventually show up in releases and help prioritize features that are already planned or under development. I've even had one-on-one meetings with gcloud product managers. Google BigQuery's public issue tracker[0] is also pretty decent. All that being said, this is a (very welcome) exception for Google. Every time I've had to interact with the support system of a non-gcloud Google product/service I've walked away disappointed. [0]: https://code.google.com/p/google-bigquery/ https://code.google.com/p/google-bigquery/
• stryk 10y ago
  Anecdotal of course, but my one and only interaction with Google support was a positive experience. This was on the retail hardware side rather than in software/services (IDK if there are different support depts., I would assume so). I bought one of the v2 Chromecasts direct from Google Store when they came out. FedEx delivered it to the wrong address. Called support (which was, to my surprise, easy to find an actual phone number for, and I was speaking to an actual human being. Probably because this was 'retail' related), and after 1 phone conversation and 2 email exchanges he filed a case with FedEx - which required no involvement from me - and i was sent a replacement free of charge. About a week later my across-the-street neighbor knocks on my door and gives me a FedEx package with my name and address on it, it was the Chromecast. Turns out the FedEx delivery driver mistakenly delivered it to his house, which has only a 1-digit difference in Address. Honest mistake, it happens. I e-mail the support guy I talked with before -- to my surprise again, this was a direct e-mail address of his, not a randomly generated 'post only' email, so he actually responded. I explained the situation, and asked where I should ship the replacement one they sent back to. They tell me to just keep it and do whatever I want with it (the guy even specifically said "give it away, sell it on eBay, do whatever"). Granted, it's only a $35 device, and it likely costs Google far less than that, but still - I did appreciate it, and my sister does as well because she got a free Chromecast.
• gcb0 10y ago
  > single defect lucky you! my nexus one had a dozen or so. Half could have been fixed in software, like everyone claims google is good at, but never were.
• dkarapetyan 10y ago
  A manufacturing process which produces millions of phones manages to produce some with defective covers. Owner of one of these defective devices tries to rectify the situation through google's awesome customer service process because that is what google is known for. Results are less than stellar.
• Mikeb85 10y ago
  While I can't say anything about Google consumer service (all the Nexus products I've had performed flawlessly and admirably), there is one advantage to getting a device on-contract - they often have replacement plans which are quite abordable (and even cover damage), and take away the hassle of dealing with the manufacturer.
• jay_kyburz 10y ago
  You guys need an ACCC like we have in Australia. Refund or replacement for defective product is the law. https://www.accc.gov.au/ https://www.accc.gov.au/
  • jay_kyburz 10y ago
    I didn't realise this was happening here in Australia! Hope to hear the follow up!
• csours 10y ago
  Why don't phones have accelerometer telemetry? Tesla's cars do!
  • greglindahl 10y ago
    Phones do have accelerometers, they're generally MEMS devices and are quite tiny. Many games use them as controls.
• daveheq 10y ago
  I don't know how many times I've heard of people going to Apple for a defect or problem and Apple will just switch the phone out; it doesn't cost them much to fix it and resell it. Google on the other hand still seems like amateurs that are treating their products like experiments, not professional products people rely on. Until they realize they need to put customer satisfaction first, they're going to keep stumbling and pulling us through this small-time garbage they think is good enough for their products and customers.