Pixel 8 Pro teardown confirms cause of screen bumps

In recent days, there has been a lot of talk about the Pixel 8 series screen bumps or bulges present on multiple units, as Google offered an official word confirming that these will not have any functional impact on the devices.

Now, a Google Pixel 8 Pro teardown confirms Google’s statements, although it also raises other concerns.

Although the Google Pixel 8 series ‘screen bumps’ issue has been trending lately, it’s not exactly new, as we spotted it in mid-October once related reports began to intensify.

Weeks later, the official word from Google arrived, assuring that the ‘phenomenon’ will not cause problems for the phones. So, what is the official cause of the Pixel 8 series screen bumps? The company said that they are only impressions of the internal components of the devices.

A recent teardown video of the Pixel 8 Pro (by JerryRigEverything on YouTube, via Ars Technica) appears to confirm Google’s claims.

According to the report, the bumps are not present on the protective glass but on the OLED display itself underneath. The construction of OLED panels (based on organic materials) makes them more susceptible to these types of marks.

So, basically, the cause of the Pixel 8 screen bumps is actually some components pressing (perhaps too much?) the OLED display from inside the phone, which is in line with what Google says. Fortunately, they are not too big, and in many cases they are only visible from certain angles or under certain lighting conditions.

Ars Technica’s report agrees with Google that the Pixel 8 series screen bumps are not something that will bring functional issues to the device in the short term. However, they also point out that this is not something normal that we see on all smartphones with OLED screens, although similar situations have been seen previously on devices like the Galaxy S23 Ultra.

That said, since the Google Pixel 8 series OLED panel is constantly ‘dented’ by some components, not even the Ars Technica team dares to assure that this will not cause problems in the future. Only time will tell if the long-term integrity or resistance of the device screens is not compromised by this situation.

Although screen bumps seem to be present on many units (enough to force Google to publicly comment on the matter), there are devices that do not present the issue. So, this seems more like a quality-control issue than something intentional.

Let’s hope that Google is correct and the Pixel 8 series screen bumps do not bring any future integrity problems to their latest flagships.