Google sued for selling £700 Pixel and Pixel XL smartphones with ‘faulty’ microphones
The Apple rival is facing a class-action lawsuit over claims that it knowingly sold defective smartphones to customers
GOOGLE is being sued for allegedly selling smartphones that it knew were defective.
The class-action lawsuit, which has been filed in the USA, suggests that the Pixel and Pixel XL handsets were known to be faulty when they were sold to customers.
Plaintiffs say that the handsets – released back in 2016 – had serious issues with the microphones, which meant the phones couldn't be used for calling, or for voice assistant functionality.
"It promoted the Pixel phones as premium products and priced them from $649 to $869," plaintiffs Patricia Weeks from Florida and Waleed Anbar from California said.
"Yet, immediately after launching the phones, customers complained directly to Google of 'severe microphone issues'.
"Despite receiving hundreds of complaints shortly after launch – and admitting the phones have a 'faulty microphone' – Google continues to sell the Pixel phones without telling purchasers about the microphone defect."
It's claimed that Google stated that less than 1% of the units sold at the time were affected by the microphone issue.
Google is said to have blamed a "hairline crack in the solder connection on the audio codec".
Users are believed to have been told to either claim under warranty, or contact a service provider – including Dixons Carphone Warehouse in the UK.
"Instead of fixing the defective Pixel phones, providing refunds, or replacing the devices with non-defective phones, Google has replaced defective phones with other defective phones, resulting in many consumers repeatedly experiencing the microphone defect.
Google's Pixel phones were the first of the company's handsets to be marketed as 'Made by Google', in contrast to earlier 'Nexus' phones that were openly designed by third-party firms.
The original Pixel phones were intended to showcase the very best of Google's Android software, and were intended to help Google better compete with Apple's iPhone.
Last year saw Google introduce updated versions of the phones – the Google Pixel 2 and Pixel 2 XL – which were a critical success.
Google declined to comment on this story.
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