The long line of Google Nexus phones may be coming to an end according to recent rumors, but many users will hope to continue using their existing devices for some time to come. Sadly it now appears that one of the main advantages of owning a Nexus phone, namely the early updates to new versions of Android, isn’t going so well for some Nexus 5X owners. A number of owners are reporting an issue of random automatic reboots happening to their phone after upgrading to the new Android 7.0 Nougat release. The reboots seem to occur after differing amounts of time, with some users experiencing multiple reboots in the same day.
The Nexus 5X, manufactured by LG, was one of two Nexus devices released by Google last year along with the larger 6P manufactured by Huawei. The phones were generally well-received, although the lower-specced Nexus 5X isn’t so well suited to some of the more demanding games on the market at the moment with it’s relatively small 2GB of RAM. Both phones, along with the older Nexus 6, Nexus 9, Pixel C and Nexus Player, were the first to receive Android 7.0 as an Over-the-Air update.
When Nexus 5X users started to report the random reboot issues, it was initially thought to be related to software and probably caused by one or more specific apps. At least one user reported that a factory reset did resolve their issue. Google have now stated though that the issue is actually hardware related and only affecting a small number of devices. The software update is said to expose a pre-existing hardware fault found in a few devices, that then causes the reboots to occur. Although online discussion threads seem to imply that a software reset is worth trying first, Google are recommending that anyone experiencing the problem should follow up on warranty and repair options. It appears at the moment that the Nexus 6P isn’t affected by the same issue. Google haven’t yet stated whether or not other phones could be affected once Android 7.0 Nougat is rolled out to other devices, but they have said that they are continuing to investigate the issue.