The Pixel 6 smartphones aren’t known for breaking easily or possessing a vulnerability that many users have to struggle with at some point. Nevertheless, especially the display can be damaged quite quickly, for many reasons. A user now reports on his repair experiences and comes at least for the processing in the USA on a good rating.
The display is probably one of the most frequently repaired components of a smartphone because it occupies the entire front, it can break despite a protective cover, protective film or even pockets by a small carelessness. This is exactly what happened to a user because although the smartphone has already survived multiple falls from the tabletop to the wooden floor, it was less mild for the display last time.
Except for a very narrow area at the top, the display was no longer usable. Although there was still a 5 cm range (estimated) with a dark representation, even that could hardly be used. Ergo: Display broken. Interestingly, the display has held exactly where the protective film has its recess for the camera. Evil tongues claim that many a fall ends better without foil than with foil, but that’s another topic.
The user contacted Google support, where after a short explanation including a photo of evidence, they got an appointment with the repair service provider uBreakifix. It has even been promised that this damage will be covered by the warranty, even though it is an “accident” and not a “self-destruction”. However, the recommended deletion of all data including factory reset was not possible. Even turning off the smartphone was impossible due to the very high display damage.
This was followed by online registration and commissioning at uBreakifix. An appointment was made and the user was able to visit the repair service provider very promptly. The problem, however, is that the user did not know until then whether this causes costs or is covered by the warranty. Once there and explained again, it quickly turned out that it is actually covered by the warranty and the user does not have to pay anything. They were probably very familiar with this kind of damage, so it could be a weak point of the Pixel 6 display, for which the user can do nothing despite a self-inflicted fall.
The repair was carried out within hours so that the user could pick up the smartphone again on the same day. Everything should have gone smoothly and was very friendly. Whether the IP68 certification is still given by the exchange and the smartphone is still splash-proof, however, has not been tested.
It is just a US experience report, which can be completely different here in Europe. Nevertheless, I wanted to briefly state it at this point, because Google is said to have made great progress in this area. This is already shown by the fact that users will soon be able to repair their devices themselves at home. Google is working with iFixit, which sells the spare parts and instructions.