Google Pixel 3, Pixel 3 XL Owners Report Fresh Issues With Call Quality

It is no secret that Google's Pixel 3 smartphones have seen more than their fair share of issues since their launch in October this year. Now we can add another problem to the growing list. According to a report, Pixel 3 and Pixel 3 XL owners are facing several issues related to phone calls, ranging from poor call sound quality to inconsistent audio and microphone failures. A number of threads describing these problems can be found on Reddit as well as Google's own Pixel User Community forum.

The folks at Android Police, who were the first to notice these issues, write that the phone calls related problems are not isolated to a single telecom carrier or device SKU. In fact both Pixel 3 and Pixel 3 XL owners in multiple countries on a varied number of operators have highlighted the problems.

“I'm having major issues with my Pixel 3 XL, rendering the phone useless for its primary function (calling people). When calling people, sound quality on my end is fine but the quality on the receivers end is terrible. Sufficiently bad that I can't actually talk to people at times. Symptoms include choppy audio, words being cut off, extreme echo and tinniness, periods of complete silence, words being 'stacked' and more,” James Denier, a Google Pixel 3 XL owner, explained on Pixel User Community website.

What is baffling that these issues don't just crop up on cellular calls, they also seem to impact Wi-Fi calling.

“Similar issue here (Pixel 3 XL, Android 9/Dec 5 patch, long time Project Fi user with Fi beta network tools enabled, connected to Wifi and Fi Network) but when I make or receive calls, I can hear the person on the other side but they cannot hear me,” wrote another Google Pixel 3 XL owner.

Even though Pixel 3 users have been airing these complaints on the online forums since the launch itself but no credible solutions or fixes have been found. The consumers write that the problems can be intermittent, not impacting every single call, as well as cropping up at just the beginning of the calls. Some consumers do seem to have found a way to mitigate a number of these problems by disabling the Advanced Calling or Enhanced 4G LTE Mode features. These features normally use VoLTE to improve the overall voice call experience on the smartphones.

Google has reportedly authorised replacements for some of the device owners but the same issues were found plagued the replacement hardware as well in many cases.

This month's Pixel 3 patch has had an inconsistent effect for most consumers facing call quality issues, with some seeing improvement while things got worse for the others.

Google is yet to officially say anything on these new reports.