Is the Pixel 8 garbage, 3 broken phones in 1 year

Random_Account

To start with, I had a Huawei p20 that had been working fine for many years, but the screen suddenly died. I had long been thinking about buying a Pixel to load GrapheneOS on since I wanted a more privacy-focused phone.

So I bought a Pixel 8 (256GB) and it went pretty smoothly, some things were a little different and sometimes more difficult, but overall it went well. But after a few weeks the screen turned almost completely green, I could still see some of what was on the screen. After hit the phone with an open hand repeatedly it went back to normal. But after a few days it started again and there was now a permanent horizontal green line about 1/3 in from the left. I tried updating my phone, but it didn't help. So I reset it back to Google OS and handed it in and got a new phone after a few weeks.

I installed GrapheneOS on this new phone and thought it the previously ohone had been a faulty phone. But after a month it started again, I used the phone a little until I repeated the same thing as the previous phone.

I'm now on my third phone in just a few months. I was now a little afraid to trust this phone too much since I hadn't had a good experience with this type of phone yet. But now there were no problems for several months, but then after about 6 months the phone was finally green again. I hit the phone again and it went back to normal, I thought I just have to see how long it lasts this time. But it didn't come back, I thought. As soon as I had forgotten that this could happen, it would happen again. Usually with an interval of 1-2 months. I figured I'd have to take it back if the problem persists.

But today when I was just looking up something I had taken a picture of, the phone froze. It didn't respond when I held down the power button. I put it aside for a few minutes and when I picked it up again, it wouldn't wake up again. It doesn't respond at all, no sound, picture or vibration. PC doesn't respond when I plug it in and it only draws 0.2A when plugged in to charge.

I don't really know what to do with this phone. I live in Norway and I think I will be able to get my money back at this point. Phones have a 5-year warranty and companies are only allowed to try to fix a problem 3 times before you can demand your money back. I don't understand why I've had so many problems with these phones when it seems like so many others don't have these problems. The only thing I can think of that is different from most other phones is that I use a wallet case for my phone, but I feel like I'm dragging it out a bit. I'm careful with my phone, I never dropped it on the floor, it never got wet and I only charged it with a slow charger and never overnight.

This became a bit more of a venting about my frustration with this phone now. The one thing I was wondering is if there is any hope of being able to get the pictures and files out of the phone when it seems so dead. I always intended to take regular backups of my phone, but the last one was 2 months ago and there was a lot of important info for work on the phone.

My only experience so far is that the Pixel is garbage and I'm the only one with problems. Is the Pixel 8 garbage?

de0u

Random_Account Things to try:

natoal

Pixels are notorious for having poor hardware, the chip and screen come to mind. Unfortunately, they're the only phones which support GrapheneOS. It's said that green line issues are caused by overheating, does your phone heat up often, etc.?

It's hard to find phones that have both good software and hardware. Google is a software company so... They do have the Titan chip but that's about it

There's probs some PC software that allow you to manipulate a phone with a dead screen, I know there was one for Samsung. You could extract your stuff from the phone with that, but you've reported that the connector/smth related to it has issues. In any case, if you've had recurring issues with Pixels, it's best that you switched

Random_Account

natoal Sometimes I've found the phone to be a little warm when I've taken it out of my pocket. I've heard that the green lines are related to overheating. I don't think it helps that I have a wallet case that covers the screen and packs in the phone when it's in my pocket.

I charged it for a few hours with a 1A charger and the phone suddenly woke up again as if nothing had happened. I'm not quite sure what to do with it, because the people in the store can't see the failure now, I got my files back at least. I don't trust this phone and pixelation in general anymore.

I'll probably try using it and see if it happens again, and I'll just have to always carry another phone with me in case this one suddenly doesn't work. This is something I might expect if there was a 1 or 2 generation number after the name, but when it says 8 after it. I think this is unacceptable quality in general, especially from such a large company.

natoal

Random_Account

There's a saying that the bigger a company gets the worse it becomes as none can threaten its hold over the market. For Pixels however, Google simply earns so much more from data harvesting that a drop in Pixel sales is hardly worth noticing. The use of Exynos modems and Tensor is for cost-cutting in the first place... I'm not sure what's so great about contemporary AI that they needed a whole new chip for that, AI has existed for more than a decade in our phones. The AI craze was propelled by LLMs, which function perfectly fine online without a specialised onboard chip. I also doubt that ChatGPT is so important that everyone needs it on their phone

Anyway, you should set up an automated backup service