Google and Huawei have settled the class action lawsuit, regarding the bootloop issues with the Nexus 6P.
The two companies will be paying out $9.75 million or up to $400 per customer. This class action lawsuit has been in the works since April 2017. There’s one more step for this lawsuit to go through, though. If the court approves the settlement at the May 9 hearing, then any Nexus 6P customer in the US that purchased the device on or after September 25, 2015 will be eligible for a claim reimbursement.
The lawsuit says that Google and Huawei breached the device warranty of the Nexus 6P. Stating that the two companies were aware of the issues that users were having, but continued to sell the device and did not respond to the bug that was causing the bootloops.
Documents state that those that purchased the Nexus 6P after September 25, 2015 are eligible for up to $400 for the faulty device. But those that received a Pixel XL in the warranty exchange program will be eligible for up to $10. You can check out the full details of the reimbursements at the source link, where the court documents are posted.
The Nexus 6P was the last Nexus device ever made – though it’s unlikely that this was the reason for that. Huawei was contracted to make the device, while Google approved the design, specs, etc and also made the software for the phone. This was before the Pixel was a thing. It was a big deal for Huawei, and many loved the Nexus 6P, until it started bootlooping. This was not happening on every smartphone either. But a large enough group of users were experiencing this issue, that it ended up being made into a class action lawsuit.
The fact that Google and Huawei both ignored the issue and continued to sell the device, without acknowledging the issue or even attempting to fix it, is a big no-no. And likely why a class action lawsuit was brought up for the Nexus 6P. Bugs happen, and they are generally fixed, or the company will exchange your device to fix it. That’s not what happened here, until many months later. Nearly a year later, Google started exchanging the Nexus 6P for a Pixel XL. Which is far too long. Seeing as the Nexus 6P was virtually unusable, since it would reboot randomly.
Huawei isn’t the first Android smartphone maker to get hit with a class action lawsuit over their devices bootlooping. LG was infamous, a couple of years ago for its devices bootlooping after having the device for nearly a year. This was not something that was being ignored though, and it was also happening on every model that LG put out. LG got hit with a class action lawsuit, and it also extended its warranty to two years to help fix the issue. Since the Nexus 5X – released the same year as the Nexus 6P, but made by LG – it hasn’t really been an issue, which is good to see.
We should learn more about this class action lawsuit after the hearing on May 9. Those that are part of it should also be getting some documentation in the mail soon.