Overheating, battery issues, connectivity problems –– no, we’re not talking about the new iPhone 15 here.
These are the most common issues now being reported by Pixel 8 owners.
The freshly introduced Pixel 8 series was revealed on October 4 and made its way to store shelves on October 12. As a result, users have had several weeks to put the Pixel 8 through its paces with their everyday smartphone activities.
Unfortunately, Pixel 8 users are finding that, much like Apple’s latest device, some vital issues need to be addressed.
Overheating phones
Pixel 8 owners have reportedly been experiencing one of the iPhone 15’s biggest problems at launch: an overheating phone. Users, like these examples from the XDA forums, have shared that the Pixel 8 gets hot to the touch while charging the device, streaming videos, or even normal web browsing.
However, the extent of the problem’s prevalence remains unclear.
Still, it’s worth noting that some Pixel 8 users have shared that the new phone does feel cooler than previous iterations of the device, like the Pixel 7. In fact, those older models have had their fair share of overheating complaints over the years, too, which were supposedly addressed with the launch of Android 14.
Poor battery life
Battery life is always a major concern for any smartphone user. However, the complaints here seem to fall more in line with serious battery-drain issue.
For example, one user on Google’s official support forums claims that their one-week-old Pixel 8 fell to 20 percent battery life after less than three hours of screen time. An Android Police writer also shared that they experienced battery and overheating issues with their Pixel 8 device.
Again, it’s unclear exactly how many Pixel 8 owners are experiencing these issues. But, it does seem to be a problem with at least some devices.
A user on Reddit theorized that the battery-drain issues may be directly tied to another one of Pixel 8’s issues: poor cellular connectivity.
Connectivity issues
Another issue that some Pixel 8 owners are reporting has to do with cellular connectivity. Users have shared that they’ve had poor connection to their 5G service, sometimes getting dropped from the connection altogether. Typically, these reports indicate that the Pixel 8 does not encounter the same issues when it’s positioned within Wi-Fi range.
As Android Police points out, previous Pixel models were also notorious for its connectivity issues with users reporting spotty reception, laggy web browsing, and dropped calls.
In the previously mentioned Reddit post, some users have tied the battery-drain problem to the connectivity issue as the Pixel 8 battery does not appear to abnormally lose its charge while utilizing a Wi-Fi service like it does over 5G.
Based on what we know (and based on the most recent examples with the iPhone 15), buggy software may be the culprit – not hardware. As Mashable reported recently, the latest Android 14 update appeared to cause a number of problems on older Pixel devices. It’s possible that Google will roll out a firmware update that will address the majority of these issues for most users, whether they own a Pixel 8 or one of the previous generations.
The general consensus from experts is that the Pixel 8 is an improvement from the Pixel 6 and 7 on all these issues. These foibles seem to have been prevalent among older Pixel devices, and while some Pixel users are reporting gen-over-gen improvements, Google still hasn’t fully rectified the issue yet.