The Pixel 5’s design is causing problems for some users.
Jay McGregor
Google is investigating the Pixel 5 screen gap issue that has surfaced on the company’s product forums over the last two days.
On Monday a post appeared on the forum about a gap between the Pixel 5’s display and body. 160 responses to the original post appeared over the next two days, many of which were complaints about the same issue. A handful of Pixel 5 owners have complained about the problem on Reddit and the XDA forums too.
Google is yet to officially respond to the complaints, but I have been told by a company employee that the issue is being investigated, which may take a few days to do. The product forums will be updated when Google has an answer for affected users.
An example of the screen gap on the Pixel from a Google product forum poster.
Dominik Wehner
Android Police also discovered the issue on its review unit, although my review device doesn’t have the same gap. I checked my Pixel 4a 5G and Pixel 4a handsets, both of which have a similar design, and found no issues. One product forum poster said that Samsung’s Galaxy S20 had the same issue, but I couldn’t find any display gaps on the Samsung handset either.
The opening between the display and body obviously raises concerns about what this means for the phone’s IP68 rating and, therefore, what that means for the phone’s warranty should it suffer water damage. Although it’s not clear if the Pixel 5 has further water and dust protection inside the device. We’ll know more when Google puts out an official statement.
For some users, the volume of complaints has been enough to put them off picking up Google’s new flagship phone. One poster said that they’d cancelled their Pixel 5 order and opted for the OnePlus 8 instead, because they “don’t want to gamble… with replacement units.” Another who planned to cancel their pre-order said that this was “shocking QC [quality control] from Google”.
This is not the first time Google’s hardware has come under scrutiny. The company’s Pixel Buds wireless headphones suffered audio connectivity problems, which resulted in frequent drops in music and content streaming. The buds were eventually fixed for most – but not all – users after a series of updates. Previous Pixel phones have had problems, too. The Pixel 3 struggled with memory management, which meant sluggish and erratic performance and the Pixel 4 had poor battery life, an issue that was acknowledged internally according to The Information.
Have you noticed a gap between the body and display on your Pixel 5? Or any other issues? Get in touch.
