As great of devices as the Pixel 2 and Pixel 2 XL are, Google's been facing a heap of issues since their release last month. First, there were numerous complaints about the Pixel 2 XL's display, then came reports of the regular Pixel 2 exhibiting a hissing sound due to the NFC chip, and most recently, the company is facing a possible class-action lawsuit.
Now, in addition to all of that, it's being reported that Google is shipping some Pixel 2 XL units that don't have Android installed.
You read that correctly. Google is selling and shipping devices that are missing the entire operating system.
It's not clear how or why this is happening, but what we do know is that multiple users on Reddit (spotted by 9to5Google) are reporting this issue. When an affected device is turned on for the first time, a message pops up saying "Can't find valid operating system. The device will not start." The first sightings of this appear to date back to six days ago from the date of publishing this article, but another customer received a device like this just yesterday (November 1).
Buyers that have received a device like this are being instructed to contact Google and return it for a new model, and while it is good to see that Google isn't leaving them in the dark, something like this really shouldn't happen in the first place. There's still some debate as to whether or not Google or LG is to blame here, but in any case, we hope that the two companies can work together to get their quality control issues figured out ASAP.
