Dull design aside, the Google Pixel and Pixel XL are two of the best premium Android phones (if not the best) you can buy right now. But there might be an issue with their speakers (audio issue) , especially at high volumes.
The issue also only rears itself when the volume set to its loudest with the Perfect Piano app and the audio is played through the speaker; headphones seem to work fine.
Pixelmantras was able to replicate the same audio problem on a Pixel and two separate Pixel XLs. The issue remained even when we updated the phones from Android 7.1 to 7.1.1. The same tests on a OnePlus 3T running Android 6.1 Marshmallow, and an iPhone 7 running iOS 10.2, however, had no such audio distortions.
Pixel owners have been reporting on audio popping and clicking issues since late October.
A post from a Pixel XL owner, Ryan Lestage, on Google’s official Pixel user community forum, from back on Oct. 24, suggests the audio issues extend to all audio including “talk radio or music played in Chrome, Facebook, TuneIn Radio, YouTube, etc.”
We wasn’t able to reproduce the issues in other commonly used music apps such as YouTube, Chrome, Spotify or Pandora.
Given the different user reports, it’s unclear exactly what’s causing the speaker problems.
Does your Pixel or Pixel XL have audio issues? Let us know on
