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Sick burn, yo: Google's latest Pixel 2 XL suffers old-skool screen singe

Seven days of testing and it's not looking good

Earlier this month, Google unveiled its new Pixel smartphones to great hullabaloo – and now to great consternation.

The Pixel 2 XL, which costs $849, has already raised eyebrows with the blue tinge to its plastic OLED screen. Now it appears that the display has burning problems as well. After a week of hard use, a reviewer at Android Central noticed that he'd already got some worrying screen burn on the device.

Screen burn occurs in some displays when frequently displayed icons or images form a ghostly patina on the screen when not in use. It used to be the bane of CRT monitors and plasma tellies back in the day, where desktop icons and frequent viewers of stations that displayed an ident logo in the same place would find it impossible to get rid of.

With the Pixel 2 XL, Google eschewed its usual screen manufacturer Samsung in favor of the OLED technology from LG. Interestingly, similar problems have also been noted with the LG V30 handset.

"The Pixel 2 XL screen has been designed with an advanced POLED technology, including QHD+ resolution, wide color gamut, and high contrast ratio for natural and beautiful colors and renderings," Google said in a statement. "We put all of our products through extensive quality testing before launch and in the manufacturing of every unit. We are actively investigating this report."

We'd like to check this out for ourselves but, despite applying for a review phone on the day of the launch, no hardware has been forthcoming. Maybe the Chocolate Factory has something to hide? ®

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