Google sued in US by Pixel owners over 'defective' microphones

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San Francisco: Two owners of Google Pixel smartphones who found microphones on their devices to be defective have filed a proposed class action suit in federal court in San Jose, California, the media reported.

The suit requests a jury trial and accuses Google of shipping the phones with defective parts, Fortune.com reported on Friday.

The two Pixel owners, Patricia Weeks and Waleed Anba, were also not happy about how Google handled customer complaints about the defects.

The original Google Pixel phones were launched in 2016.

According to a report at the tech news site Ars Technica, Weeks informed Google of her problem in March 2017, three months after her December 2016 purchase and therefore she was within her one year warranty.

Weeks claimed that Google refused to refund her money or replace it even after acknowledging the defect.

"Dr. Weeks did not know that the Pixel phones have defective microphones when she bought her phone. Had Google disclosed the defect to her, she would not have bought a Pixel or would have paid substantially less for it," the complaint states.

Anbar, on the other hand, was not within his one year warranty as he bought his phone in December 2016 and reported the issue in January 2018.

"We don't comment on ongoing litigation but it might be worth including a link to our help centre page in your story which explains the solutions we have for out-of-warranty customers," Emily Clarke, a Google spokeswoman, told Ars.