Lol there’s a review on BGR, if you can call it that, that is so scathing I laughed out loud. I can’t link to it here at the moment. I read it on my iPhone on the Apple news app. The reviewer ended up throwing the Pixel 2XL into the trash and photographing it inside of the trash can. The author invited people to check out his Instagram, which I did...interesting person. And that’s all I’ll say about that.
Okay here’s a link to the discussion of the BGR article and that contains a link to the BGR article. I’ll link to the XDA article so you can get the opposing perspective and the link to the original all in one:
https://forum.xda-developers.com/pixel-2-xl/how-to/bgr-drops-massive-turd-pixel-2-xl-due-t3691527
I don’t doubt he saw some complete fug on his test units and that he did not get photos that impressed him all that much on his test phones. I saw some noise and stuff that didn’t impress me, either, on the Verizon one I checked out. But I’ve learned not to judge all potential outcomes by looking at the results from a sample of one. However, after studying countless sample pictures in my moments of spare time, I can see certain trends when some of these pixels aren’t optimal.
I would not hesitate to return a Pixel that doesn’t give me consistently good results and falls among one of the ones that exhibits excessive noise, haze in challenging lighting situations and a poor white balance that colors a scene a bit teal. I’ve noticed some other people’s test Pixels do this
And some don’t. I think one thing we can determine so far is that quality control on these initial batches is pretty loosey goosey. I can’t blame people for coming away with a bad impression if they get a bad one.
It does not help that this year it is painfully obvious Google scrambled to cobble together a tremendous effort split between two very different manufacturers. I didn’t even think they’d get any Pixels done this year. I think it’s a bit of a miracle they had a cohesive vision to sell at their Keynote this year. However, the implementation of that vision has not demonstrated cohesion so we have a result that reminds me a little bit of the movie “Twins”
Google can dress them up alike and present them as twins representing their united concept for the AI and software, but people can’t help but notice they’re different and some people are going to react badly to being told these phones are only different in size. “Uh...kinda sorta not really”. And that’s a polite reaction.
So those of us who are still interested in the second generation Pixels have to be realistic about what we are going to see and hear in official reviews and friends’ reviews and take the good and the bad as it comes with an open mind and good grace.
Similarly, I hope those who come here with either praise or criticism do so with the mindset of helping and informing, and not to push an agenda or personal bias.
