First, reports indicate that the Google Nexus 6P quickly ran out of supply then came the so-called Bendgate, in which the device reportedly bends and breaks easily. Now another woe for the first premium vanilla Android flagship - the rear camera's visor glass panel is said to be spontaneously cracking. Will it be Glassgate in the making?
A number of Nexus 6P owners, according to Ubergizmo, are sharing reports via Reddit that the visor glass panel of their smartphones is suffering mysterious cracks for unknown reasons. It appears that the breakages are spontaneous and not prompted by drops, accidental or intentional, the report added.
"It was sat on a table next to me when I heard the glass snap, leaving a little snowfall of shavings on the table under it," Ubergizmo quoted a Reddit user as saying.
Following the initial breakages, the cracks created tend to spread on the entire panel where the Nexus 6P main camera lens rest. "It's now continuing to crack away to itself," continues the Reddit post.
The same report claims that numerous 6P owners have been affected by the latest issue to plague the Huawei-made Nexus phablet. For some the cracks happened shortly after the device unboxing while others reported that the glass panel damages were recorded following days of use.
Ubergizmo said that Redditors speculated that breakages could be explained by a flaw during the glass tempering process when the 6P was being mass manufactured. Or it could be "the expanding and contracting of the material," used as the 6P's casing, the report said.
Huawei opted for a unibody metal housing for the Nexus 6P that is a first for Google's line of flagship devices.
In a related report, 9to5Google pointed to the tempering of the Gorilla Glass coating as the likely culprit for the glass-shattering incidents.
"This could be caused by the method they use to temper the glass ... The method used to temper Gorilla glass involves giving the glass ion baths to strengthen it. The strength comes at a cost though - due to the strong attraction of the glass particles to one another and compression of the whole, the glass develops lines of internal torque and stress, leading to explosive results if the glass is impacted or pressed from the wrong angle," the report quoted a Redditor post as saying.
9to5Google also recalled that Google encountered the same problem with the LG-made Nexus 4 that was corrected in subsequent batches of assembled devices by putting little nubs on the corners of the device to prevent its back glass panel from coming in direct contact with surface when rested on its back.
It is unclear if the problem exists on all Nexus 6Ps currently in circulation as Google is yet to comment on the matter.