Google Pixel 3 XL: The best camera phone has a nasty surprise

Google’s new flagship phone Pixel 3 XL may have the best camera but it cannot do one thing for some users — save photos in the gallery.

Google Pixel 3 XLcamera has one major bug (Google)

Google's Pixel 3 XL is already being hailed as one of the top camera phones in the world. Unlike many other phones, Pixel 3 XL uses just one camera lens on the back and leverages software and machine learning algorithms to process the images. Early Pixel 3 XL adopters are now reporting a bizarre issue with the phone — photos do not get saved after clicking.

The problem seems to be affecting both Pixel 3 and Pixel 3 XL devices. Users are complaining that the photos show up as a small icon in the camera gallery, but after switching to other app, the photos vanish from the gallery.

"I have never heard of this before today, as it didn't happen on my Pixel XL or Pixel 2 XL. Last night, it happened to me on my Pixel 3 XL out of nowhere, but I thought it was a random glitch. Didn't think twice about it until I saw your post on Twitter. Hopefully this gains some traction because it's only a matter of time before I take a picture that is (slightly) important and it disappears," wrote a user responding to a thread on Google Pixel user community forum.

Some users said that it had happened on the older generation Pixel 2 XL phones as well.

"This happens to me regularly (2-3 times a month) on my Pixel 2 XL. I suspect some serious flaw or bug in the read/write components (HW/SW) of these Pixel devices. Is this all related to the root cause of intense lag on my and OP's Pixel 1 and 2 devices," said another user.

 

Has happened to me several times. This is the kind of thing that happens on $199 phones. Truly ridiculous that Google still has random hiccups in its camera app like this. https://t.co/52HRC85Lj7

— Andrew Martonik (@andrewmartonik) October 18, 2018

 

otoh it can take photos like this and it's been stable and fast throughout, barring those few blips pic.twitter.com/7Sd9O0wZDs

— Daniel Bader (@journeydan) October 16, 2018

People also took to Reddit to report the problem.

"Are we sure this has to do with Pixels or Google Camera? Both my BlackBerry Priv and Essential PH-1 did the exact same thing on the stock apps, I'd be more inclined to think it's a problem with Android or Google Photos," said one user.

Even though Google hasn't acknowledged or responded to the complaints, it's speculated that the problem lies with the HDR mode on the phone. According to a Newsbytesapp report, the bug gets fixed after switching off the HDR mode. It is worth pointing out that we did not face any such issue on our Pixel 3 XL unit.

That said, the camera isn't the only thing that is causing troubles to Pixel 3 XL users. According to separate reports, Pixel 3 XL speakers are producing uneven sound. Pixel 3 XL comes with dual speakers (one at the top and one at the bottom). The speakers, however, are delivering mismatched audio quality and are missing key elements like highs.