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Some Google Pixel 2 XL Units Shipped Without an Operating System (androidpolice.com)
Corbin Davenport, writing for AndroidPolice: Some Pixel 2 XL units are being shipped without Android properly installed. Obviously, the phone can't boot without the OS. It may be possible to flash a factory image, since fastboot is supposed to allow signed images to be flashed with the bootloader still locked, but the affected phones could have other problems that prevent this from working. The company confirmed the veracity of the story, but did not share more details. It said, however, that the issue had been resolved.
You could argue that they all do.
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
I just got mine yesterday and I noticed it didn't have Android installed. I'm preparing my lawsuit. Is $50,000 enough?
Wouldn't it be nice if that were normal as an option?
When will get the IBM PC of mobile computing? WHEN!?
The world's technology will only improve when it's considered normal for a user to program his "device" as he sees fit.
Which company, exactly?
Read and you will see why.
https://jalopnik.com/tesla-shipped-cars-without-seats-and-digital-displays-1820113207
Can I install Windows 10 Mobile on this and make it useful?
I wouldn't mind an OS-less phone, provided that it is easy to install one's ROM of choice. It would be nice to have LineageOS supported from the start, for example.
And you people wonder why most end-users flock to the large vendors.
The piles of bricked Nexus 5x phones didn't give you a clue? I don't know what Google was thinking returning to LG.
We depend on that microscopic minority to make our mobile ---c-o-m-p-u-t-e-r-s--- "devices" do something actually meaningful.
That's the OP's point.
Until that minority is allowed to get to work, we're going to be stuck in the bean counters' walled prisons, enjoying only the "creativity" those Vogons can muster.
Annoying, but seriously, this is what warranties are for.
I have actually had 3 of the original Pixel. The first one I received had a flaky microphone that went out on me. I think it was a soldering defect, because it caused the phone to endlessly reboot. I'm a first responder, and I decided I couldn't live with that when I was in the ambulance trying to call the hospital about a patient and the phone started rebooting.
So, I requested a replacement from Google. They sent me a refurbished Pixel. (read: they gave me the option to purchase a refurbished Pixel off the Google Play store at original price, with the knowledge that I'd get the money credited back when they received my original. I got the 128 GB, so I was out $749 until they credited it back.)
But this refurbished Pixel didn't have Android on it. I pulled it out of the box, turned it on, and it went straight to the boot menu, rather than booting up Android. In my conversations via chat with the Google personnel, I had trouble convincing them that I couldn't just factory reset the phone BECAUSE THERE WAS NO OS TO RESET THE CRAZY THING TO)
Anyway, I had to package up this refurbished phone and send it back, still rebooting because turning the phone off didn't even work. The third Pixel I received (read: purchased for $749 off the store, then got eventually refunded) has worked fine.
Guys, you're overreacting here.
They didn't ship without an OS, you just accidentally chose the "FreeDOS" option because you were just going to throw LineageOS on there anyway and didn't want to pay for a whole useless Android license.
Just look for the little:
C:\>
Sounds great, can I put Debian on it?
done!
“We have a whole valley full of people talking UNIX versus MS-DOS. What do you need any of that for? Just throw it all out; get rid of all that nonsense. Maybe you need it for computer scientists, but for people who want to get something done, no. Do you need an operating system? No.”
– Jef Raskin
No OS? No problem!