Google has confirmed that a Pixel 8 display-bump issue, which some users have complained about, doesn’t affect performance or damage the screen.
Some Pixel 8 owners have noticed small bumps on the display if the device is viewed in a certain light, or at a particular angle. The lumps appear at the top of the phone, on either side of the front facing camera.
Users on Google’s community forums and Reddit shared pictures of their handsets with the bumps highlighted, but the amount of affected devices appears to be small. My review unit, for example, doesn’t have them. Pixel 8 owners speculated that the cause was components pushing up against the screen, with concerns that this would inflict damage to the display panel over time.
In a statement to 9To5Google, Google has now confirmed that the bumps are indeed components under the screen, but the issue won’t affect durability.
“Pixel 8 phones have a new display. When the screen is turned off, not in use and in specific lighting conditions, some users may see impressions from components in the device that look like small bumps. There is no functional impact to Pixel 8 performance or durability.”
I checked with a repair and microelectronics expert about Google’s claim that the bumps on the Pixel 8 won’t cause long term damage. Ricky Panesar, founder of iCorrect, agrees that this won’t affect usage.
“It’s because of the manufacturing process at the OLED factory. When the glass is pressed onto the display, they are pressing in a mould which is imprinting on the OLED.
“I agree with Google that it will not effect the usage of the phone, but it can be annoying. We’ve seen this before in the iPhone XS when the screw holding in the camera module would imprint on the OLED panel, very obviously, in the exact same spot for every user.”
Google’s long term promise
We will have to see if the Pixel 8 display bumps cause an issue in the future. If they do, it will be the first major test of Google’s new hardware parts policy.
Google has now promised to provide parts and software updates, for the Pixel 8 and Pixel 8 pro, for seven years. That beats Apple’s unofficial policy of between five and six years of support for its iPhones. This is alongside semi-regular “feature drop” updates that deliver new software skills to existing Pixel devices.
But Google’s parts policy might just edge out its Apple competition. iFixit confirmed that the Pixel 8 has no parts pairing, where individual components are locked to that device, so they can’t be easily swapped out. Apple does this for a lot of its devices, including the iPhone, iPad and MacBook.
Repair experts have discovered that if some parts are replaced, even with genuine components from the exact same model, features may be lost. If the battery is replaced in the iPhone 15 and the new part isn’t calibrated using Apple’s proprietary software, which is only available to Apple certified repair shops, users will lose the battery health and cycle count features.
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