Google's attempt to make a truly stunning smartphone with the Google Pixel has been lauded by many. However, some users have reported facing a problem with the device's microphone.
The company has confirmed that a few Google Pixels have been shipped to customers with some hardware issues in tow. A storm of complaints from users forced the company to accept the issues regarding the device's microphones, which supposedly did not work apart from when users recorded videos.
The Google Support forum said that unfortunately this problem cannot be solved by software updates as it is a hardware issue, but the company has assured that all the faulty phones will be recalled and fixed.
The Hardware Problem
A Google Pixel user first brought this matter to the attention of the company.
"Microphone stopped working entirely, except when recording video upon which it'll record audio fine as if nothing were wrong. I factory reset the phone and the issue still persists everywhere but the camera app," states the complaint.
According to Brian Rakowski, VP of Product Management at Google, the possible reason for the defective microphones could either be a hairline crack in solder connection of the microphones, or an absolute manufacturing defect.
"We are taking additional steps to qualify refurbished phones to make sure they don't have this mic problem. It's possible that some replacement phones were not properly qualified before we understood this issue, but that's no longer the case," said Rakowski in response to the complaint.
He also added that only the phones made before January this year may have these issues, but the average rate of this problem is less than 1 percent.
Previous Problems
This is not the only time that Google is experiencing problems regarding the Google Pixel. A few issues had cropped up regarding lens flare in pictures caused by the physical structure of the camera lens. However, Google was quick to introduce a software update which partially removed the lens flare.
The mic fiasco seems to be a minor issue due to the small number of phones affected with the problem, as well as Google's confirmation of replacing the phones.
The most widespread problem that people faced was related to the very limited stocks of both the Google Pixel as well as the Pixel XL devices. Many variants of the phones are still sold out at Google's online store.
These issues, however, do not seem to have affected the popularity of the Google smartphones and the company has also confirmed the arrival of the Google Pixel 2 in the near term.
