While Google’s Nexus handsets weren’t exactly known for their cameras, the Pixel 2 has changed all of that, with DxOMark ranking the Pixel 2 as having the best smartphone camera. It is quite an achievement, but unfortunately it seems that users have recently discovered an issue with it, and that is it seems to be unable to handle LED lights.
According to a post on the Pixel User Community (via Pocketnow), user Chazzdjr claims that when taking photos and videos with the Pixel 2 under LED lighting, it has led to strange banding that appears in the footage. Chazzdjr is not alone in this as other Pixel 2 owners have since stepped forward with similar claims.
That being said we should point out that this isn’t exactly a new phenomenon as LED and fluorescent lights do flicker, although they tend to flicker at the frequency of the power supply and generally speaking, our eyes do not notice it. However if you’ve ever tried to record a video of a monitor or TV, you might have noticed that effect.
Some have pointed out that this is not an issue with other phone cameras, and based on the comments it seems that Google is giving customers replacements for their phones, which means in a way the company is acknowledging that it might be a problem. It is unclear if a software update could fix the issue, or if it might be a hardware problem. In any case you can check out the problem for yourself in the video above.