When it first launched in October, Google’s Pixel 2 XL was met with a ton of criticism — much of it coming from me — about its subpar display. Among the issues identified by reviewers were muted colors, a potential image retention problem, and, most obvious of all, a horrible blue shift anytime you were looking at the screen at an angle (a common issue to OLED screens that’s especially bad on the 2 XL). It was all serious enough to prompt Google to extend the Pixel 2 XL warranty by a year and issue a software update to recalibrate the phone’s colors. The one thing Google couldn’t fix was that blue color shift, but as it turns out, that problem isn’t universal to all Pixel 2 XLs: some devices out there don’t have it nearly as bad as others.
I was first alerted to this fact by the Jerome Ortega video above, wherein he demonstrates how his newer Pixel 2 XL has a warmer display that exhibits very little color-shifting when tilted at an angle. It is, by all accounts and appearances, just a much better display. I got hold of a newer Pixel 2 XL this past week and, sure enough, it too has a nearly total absence of blue color shift. It’s almost as good as looking at a modern OLED panel from Samsung, and you can see it pictured on the left in the image at the top of this article.
Doing a bit of digging around the subject, I’ve been able to ascertain that the display model and supplier haven’t changed: it’s still LG Display that’s providing the 6-inch OLED screen in all Pixel 2 XLs. Furthermore, this doesn’t appear to be a matter of the older phones having worse displays than the newer ones: the 2 XL that I have with a good screen was built in October, whereas commenters in an XDA thread about the Pixel 2 XL’s screen woes still report buying “distractingly blue” displays made in December.
Having spent a lot of time with the older, bluer Pixel 2 XL over the past couple of months, I can say that it’s usable even with its imperfect screen. You’ll never love the experience, but it’s an okay compromise to make for the sake of the awesome camera performance and battery life that this device provides. But here’s the thing: there are Pixel 2 XLs on sale that don’t ask for that compromise. My newer device is much easier on the eyes and makes me genuinely pleased to hold and play with it (in part because it also has the prettier panda colorway).
Ultimately, this situation appears to be another failure of Google’s hardware quality control. Beside having such a wide divergence in quality among its displays, the company also managed to ship out some Pixel 2 units without an operating system, some others with empty packaging, and another that literally failed a quality control test. I haven’t yet been able to get a satisfactory response from Google on this matter, but will update this article should one be forthcoming.
In an ideal world, only the nicer, better screens would be making it out to retail, and every Pixel 2 XL would look as good as the one I’m presently using. But we’re not living in that world, and for now at least, we’re mostly left hoping and guessing about exactly what sort of a display we’d get when ordering a Pixel 2 XL.
Update January 15th, 4:25PM ET: Google has declined to comment on the matter.
Comments
As you did mention, the camera and the battery have been amazing enough for me to get over the one major gripe I had with the phone: Lack of Headphone jack.
I am not going to say things have been blown out of proportion (except for the shipping w/o an OS bit) just because I haven’t had issues with mine and I do hope Google improves their QC for the newer Pixels and the next gen, but in the 1 month I have had my phone I have been in love with it! And I haven’t even used the camera all that much!
There may be a blue shift/tint thing on mine but I honestly haven’t looked for it and I am very happy with the screen I have. Granted, I would trade this screen for the one on the Note 8 but then I get a superior Camera and Software experience, and battery life that is on par with the Note.
By LosPerdedores on 01.15.18 5:29am
Mine has the blue shift and I don’t care. Best phone I’ve ever owned. If they were to drop using LG altogether, they’d make an even better phone without the dumb QC issues, especially if they use Samsung screens.
By Stone Cold Dan Quinn on 01.15.18 8:28am
My Pixel 2 XL has minimal blue shift at an angle I would never use my phone at. Funny thing, the iPhone X and Galaxy S8 in the stores have a similar blue shift to mine…not a problem for any of these phones.
I have a Pixel 1 with a Samsung panel, and the Pixel 2XL is even better – whites are whiter.
For the rest, I think the Pixel 2 XL may unseat the Nexus 5 for my all-time favorite phone. (Still hate metal phones though, and the cases needed to prevent dropping them)
By shakalakaboom on 01.15.18 12:27pm
Yeah, mine has the blue shift as well. I was dismayed when I first took it out of the box, but within hours I basically forgot about it thanks to the incredible experience of using it (the camera, the software, the battery life). I really only notice it now when Night Light mode turns on; otherwise, I haven’t really noticed it since the first day.
By techee44 on 01.15.18 12:31pm
When I’ve seen Pixel 2 XLs in store its not the blue shift that if the biggest problem, its how dull and muddy the colours are compared to the iPhone X/S8 and even good LCDs
By Dr Strange on 01.15.18 5:31am
For the "candy color" fans: Settings → Display → Set colors to Saturated …
I use it on the regular setting, and when I switch it to saturated I am really turned off by how artificial everything looks.
By Marv89 on 01.15.18 6:20am
Sounds like they are back where Samsung were a few year back. The S8 and IphX screens dont look oversaturated, they look very natural
By Dr Strange on 01.15.18 7:07am
Umm.. Samsung displays are far from Natural looking.
By zSTiK on 01.15.18 7:41am
maybe he’s implying they’re far from being as over-saturated as they used to be
By llort on 01.15.18 8:29am
but as a old owner of a galaxy s8, the images are extremely saturated. My Instagram feed looked over-saturated.
By AndrewGa on 01.15.18 9:56am
Switch the display to Basic. It’s sRGB.
By Suchir on 01.15.18 12:18pm
So what Pixel offers by default then?
By rheerani on 01.15.18 12:49pm
No, Pixel is color managed by default. Any unflagged content or apps will be displayed in sRGB though. This should be a good thing, but the Pixel is horribly calibrated, and has a physically bad screen, so it looks worse than other color managed/default sRGB devices like the iPhone or Galaxy S8.
By Suchir on 01.16.18 11:49pm
You do know when the S8 came out it score 103 on color space? Or you could just make false acquisitions without proof though.
By mrpoopybunghole on 01.15.18 9:06am
That doesn’t mean they’re utilizing their fantastic screens in a natural way, though. It’s pretty obvious they pump up the saturation on their devices.
By Chally on 01.15.18 11:51am
Which I like better, but yeah people need to stop pretending its a natural look.
By Stone Cold Dan Quinn on 01.15.18 12:44pm
Samsung phones default to being overly saturated. I prefer what Google did with the Pixel 2 XL but if you want over saturated just change it from the default.
It is interesting on the Android side of things Samsung maybe has got some use to over saturated. Versus Apple has always used true colors. So if you are use to the iPhone the Pixel 2 will look far more natural than a Samsung phone.
By jacksmith21006 on 01.15.18 8:30am
The Pixel 2 XL is horribly calibrated though. It doesn’t even target D65. Not to mention it’s probably only batch calibrated. The color management is good in theory though.
By Suchir on 01.16.18 11:52pm
The s8 screens look very natural? Damn, it’s not true. I find then the most unrealistic of them all. Even my old Galaxy S5 had better colour reproduction… it is too damn saturated and it has a bluish cold tone. This bluish white is so aggressive to the eyes. This is how I see it…
By AndrewGa on 01.15.18 9:55am
Yeah you are like in that movie where Jack Black instead of seeing the extremely fat girl everybody was seeing he saw Gwyneth Paltrow.
By Orion4tech on 01.18.18 8:55am
There was an update released which allows the user to change the colour choices. I doubt the store units get updated to the new OS…
By OkComputer on 01.15.18 6:41am
I was just going to say this. I got my Pixel about a month or so ago, but after the OS update to fix the color saturation or lack there of. The display models did not have the most recent update that fixed this issue. I would assume that that is still the case.
By roonhawk on 01.15.18 10:37am
Sorry, but LCDs and OLEDs aren’t in the same league.
Once you have used a good OLED regularly, going to LCD is a steep downgrade. Colors looked washed out even on the best LCD compared to OLED. It’s just the nature of it.
By wingzero0 on 01.15.18 7:28am
I might be blind but I have an iPhone X and when I use one of my friend’s iPhone 8, it’s not that bad.
By sphexie on 01.15.18 7:59am
I agree. I still had my iPhone 7 Plus up until a week ago and I thought it looked great.
By RF9 on 01.15.18 5:30pm