DealNTech Mobiles, PCs, and All Things Tech
Google Pixel 6 and Pixel 7 are Google’s flagship devices for 2021 and 2022, respectively. They were launched a few years ago but still receive timely updates with monthly security patches.
Google no longer provides security patches on the first of every month to every device at the same time anymore, and it’s a lot more inconsistent in recent times. This move from Google ensures that the updates are more stable when they’re out and won’t necessarily come out on the first of every month.
Like every other Google Pixel device, these were known to have a great and reliable camera performance. The Pixel 6 came with a large 1/1.3″ 50 MP Main and 12MP Ultrawide for the camera specs. The selfie was an 8MP snapper. On the other hand, Pixel 7 also had a similar setup with the same GN1 50MP Main, 12MP Ultrawide, and 10.8MP Selfie.
The low light capabilities were something these phones made headlines about. However, some Pixel 7, Pixel 7a, and Pixel 6 users have an issue with the flash feature. This is disappointing, considering that Google no longer offers updates on the first of every month. Since there’s no fixed deadline, we expected better stability when the updates roll out.
The complaints began last month when the Pixel Camera 9.2 update came out. Although the update brought various new features and UI design changes, it also seems to have brought some issues.
The reports say the camera flash is out of sync on their devices, causing the photos to come out very dark and unusable. The problem exhibits itself in two ways. Some cases say the flash fires a hair of a second quicker before the camera captures the image. For others, the camera requires multiple shots before the flash syncs correctly. This is a hit-and-miss experience; the phone captures nothing but a blank canvas. Both these issues are resulting in users having a frustrating experience.
However, as mentioned before, the issue has started occurring after a specific update last month. But so far, even on devices running Android 14 QPR2 beta or the January stable build, the issue seems to be persisting for some.
Official Acknowledgement
A product expert in the official support forum labeled this a bug. Google has not officially acknowledged the issue yet. This lack of disclosure by the company adds to the affected users’ frustration.
Google Pixel phones have low-light capabilities, which are marketed as one of the features. This makes the user expect a good camera performance in low-light scenarios. But unexpected issues like these are causing the affected users to miss a memorable capture when they don’t expect it. A potential workaround is to avoid using the tap-to-focus feature and let the phone set everything automatically, but we’re unsure whether it works.
We hope Google acknowledges this issue immediately and releases the bug fix update. They will likely do so because the issue is not minor. We don’t yet know the scale of this problem, but it’s clear that many users have such issues with the flashlight.
