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Some Pixel 2 Users Are Complaining About A High-Pitched Whine and Clicking Noises (arstechnica.com)
After dealing with all sorts of screen issues, another problem with Google's flagship smartphone is popping up. This time it's an audio issue: users on Google's official forums and elsewhere are reporting odd sounds coming from the Pixel 2 speakers. Ars Technica reports: Customers are complaining of "clicking" and a "high-pitched whine" coming from the Pixel 2 and Pixel 2 XL. Most reports on the forums say the noises are coming from the top or bottom speaker on the Pixel 2 and Pixel 2 XL. Some reports say the sounds come through during calls, while other users say the speaker noises happen any time the screen is on. A user made a recording of the sound, which can be heard here. Most users are being told to return their devices after contacting support, but at least one person claims they were told this issue would be patched in an upcoming update. One possible workaround is to turn off NFC, which some users say stops or lowers the noises.
I remember when Apple using quality DACs inside the iPod was a big fucking deal.
These days, it's all disposable junk. All of it. Every single device is manufactured to accept whatever substitute components are available this week, and it's a total crap shoot as to whether or not you'll get something with issues or not. Apple, Google, HTC, Samsung, doesn't matter. You get to pay a premium for a handheld device that's designed to be obsolete in 2-3 years, AND you get to play the game where you're looking for a decent unit with no screen tinting, bad DACs or electrical interference, defective switches, connectors, etc, etc, etc. Companies aren't competing to build the best device anymore- they're competing to build the cheapest shittiest junk they can, and then they turn around and try to sell it for the highest possible price.
Welcome to a digital world ruled by shareholders, where the only objective is to make more money. Gone are the days where people wanted to design a better product, and money was just a side effect of succeeding at that.
Well, to be fair, Google's support has traditionally been crap. This has been true since Google started selling non-electronic stuff.
Google, it seems, can sling electrons around like the best of them. But atoms? forget it. Heck, I've ordered stuff through Google, and had it take far longer to arrive to me than someone who went to the store and bought it.
Getting someone on the phone is a novelty to Google - I still remember when your (only) support option was Google Groups.
And as much as you fault Apple, you have to remember Apple's support has traditionally been among the best of everyone. Perhaps not as good as Amazon where it seems everyone is empowered to do anything to make you happy, but still seemingly non-useless (aside from the few incidents that get well-reported because well, Apple news is money making news).. Not that Apple is a saint in the support department - they only recently opened an official Apple Support twitter account, which is like 10 years after everyone else. And they have a nasty habit with the delete button on their forums.
But Google? Well, old school support options they generally suck at. For stuff like this, you're actually better off waiting for the official Google blog to announce something than trust what support says.
The bigger problem here is Google don't learn from Nexus devices. They order them, they sell them, and each time a new set of problems appear caused by the overlap between the Google design and the current manufacturer.
In case you didn't know, Pixel2's biggest problem is it snaps easily, because the weak point in the case where the switches are, happens to also be where they the plastic cover for the antennas connects to the back body.
A combination of the circuit board designer (some outside company), the stylist (probably Google person), and the mechanical/testing people (the phone manufacturer) being all disconnected and separate.
Each time they change manufacturers the overlap is different and a new set of problems are revealed. Which is great for the company whose learning (the phone company), since they're making the mistakes at Googles expense not their own, damaging Google's brand, not their own.
Are Google actually learning something from these Nexus Pixel devices, or is it just an exercise in hubris? Because none of their tablets or phones sells in large volumes, and they don't seem to address the problems with any of them in the next generation. Would it really kill them to add a microSD card? Would it really kill them to make a big tablet that doesn't rotate vertically if you open snapchat? Yet they don't learn from each failure.
Google's support for everything has always been the worst out there, because for the most part they don't even have any. I've got a gmail account that I've been using for at least 7 years as a "send mail as" account but lost the password to and can't recover. There's literally no way for me to speak to any human being at google in any way to fix this. Any human could take one look at the system and see it's consistently been used for almost a decade, but all they've got is the terribly designed users-only forum.
At least Valve pretends to have some semblance of customer service.
A bullet may have your name on it but splash damage is addressed "To whom it may concern."
This is the exact opposite of how Apple, and to a certain extent, Samsung, operate. Apple famously pits manufacturers against each other. If the components arenâ(TM)t meeting spec, theyâ(TM)re sent back, at the manufacturerâ(TM)s cost. The whole reason why the iPhone X is reportedly supply constrained is because the dot projector is hard to make and Apple keeps sending them back.
Theyâ(TM)re not faultless, but in general, the components you get in an iPhone are the best ones that can be sourced from anyone.
Samsung has done some dumb things, even in recent memory, but itâ(TM)s hard to deny that theyâ(TM)re nearly always the SOURCE of the highest end parts. I have no love for them, but they make the best screens, have high quality chip fabs, etc. Iâ(TM)ll give Samsung a lot of grief for being a thieving garbage company with immoral leadership, but their high end parts are legitimately well made.
Only Apple has the scale to operate like they do, and only Samsung can build parts as well as they do, and the rest fight for scraps at the margins.
And at the same time, those products were out of reach to many people; lowering the quality to reasonable bounds often resulted in something massively more attainable that only actually breaks marginally more often than the original. Its easy to look at the past with rose colored glasses, but the era of "indestructible" washing machines was also the era of poor people washing clothes by hand and frequent visits from your local washing machine repair man (who could indeed repair the washing machine, but was required to do so far more often).
You're special forces then? That's great! I just love your olympics!