Google just can't catch a break with the Pixel 2 XL.
First there were the serious display issues, including pOLED burn-ins. Now it's been confirmed to record poor audio quality when it's capturing videos.
Pixel 2 XL Audio-Recording Capabilities Disappoint
On the Pixel User Community, Pixel 2 XL owner Tom Shelton started a thread to get answers to his phone's "very bad" sound quality in recorded videos.
Soon after, plenty of other users chimed in, saying that they're experiencing the same issue, including Android Police's Artem Russakovskii, who says it's probably not a hardware problem but a software one, where it's connected to the encoder overcompensating and compressing some sounds.
Meanwhile, Nexus and Pixel community manager Orrin Hancock says it could be one or the other, hardware or software, depending on the user's situation.
"If it happens only occasionally, then there might be something software related that is interfering with the way audio is getting recorded. If it happens all the time, then it might be a hardware issue, unfortunately," he writes.
Pixel 2 Does Better
Redditor ph0b0z posted a compilation of videos that pits the Pixel 2 XL and the Pixel 2 against each other in terms of recording videos.
In their words, the audio "doesn't sound great," with "problematic background" sound and a "really annoying ringing" when shooting using the Pixel 2 XL. On the other hand, the Pixel 2 delivers "good audio" across the board, despite a few frame drops here and there.
The gist of it is that the Pixel 2 outdoes the Pixel 2 XL in this aspect, which shouldn't really be the case.
Fix Is On The Way
Another Redditor who goes by the name of Bryan967 says that they've gotten in touch with a Google rep, confirming that a fix will be coming soon enough.
"The TL;DR [too long; didn't read] version is the audio quality from videos recorded on the 2 XL is garbage and heavily distorted. It appears to be a software issue only effecting video recording apps (camera, insta, etc)," they write. "I chatted with a support rep and she said that it is a known issue that Google will be pushing a fix out for soon."
To sum things up, the Pixel 2 XL can't record audio well when capturing videos, and that doesn't help the problems it's already having with the display. And from the look of things, the smaller Pixel 2 is the perfect replacement for the larger Pixel.
