Not only is the gadget sold out across the nation and in the UK (save for the 8GB model sold on Google Play), the device has already revealed several manufacturing defects. Now another showstopper has reared its face.
Geek.com reports that it's noticed some odd touchscreen behavior "that would seem to indicate a defect." More specifically, touching the tablet can bring absolutely no response from the tablet whatsoever. When held in portrait mode, the dead area reportedly runs all the way up the height of the panel, and "across to about the mid point."
"The severity of the issue seems to vary over time; some occurrences are much less serious than others," the site reports. "To temporarily solve the issue, I can turn the screen off and back on. While the fix is easy, it’s still an annoying bug to put up with. Playing games for more than a few minutes means toggling the screen and interrupting gameplay. Still other times, non-games seem to be triggering the same behavior, but this is less common."
"The poor touch detection seems to extend to every part of the UI when it happens," the site adds. "Swiping through home screens can only be accomplished by using the left side of the screen, and it’s almost impossible to use any buttons or UI elements that show up on the right side."
It's believed that the problem is due to heat... which is also believed to be the culprit behind another issue regarding the screen. Many Nexus 7 owners are complaining that their tablets' displays have begun to come apart from the bezel -- the adhesive seemingly isn't working correctly. Affected users are thus complaining to Google but are having difficulties getting anything resolved.
Customers are also complaining about dead pixels after boot, although there seems to be more reports about screen separation than the pixel issue. Could all three symptoms be the result of a common problem? Could heat be an issue, killing pixels, pushing the screen out and causing it to be unresponsive? Given that the touch issue can be resolved by merely turning it off and on again, heat seems to be a contributing factor, not the actual cause.
That said, Google seems to have a mess on its hands: not only can it not meet consumer demand, but it's likely going to see a huge wave of returns in the coming months. Maybe consumers should wait until the second batch comes off the presses.
