These newer reports about the screen quality and color profiling got me a bit shook. Legit didn't seem like a major issue from a variety of my own sources -- a few YouTube based tech outlets, basically.
Next to input lag (which is not even an issue in flagship phones), color gamut is probably my highest priority feature in any display. Having a weird warm/coldness and stiff sRGB color accuracy could be a real detriment to my experience with my incoming Pixel 2 XL.
I think Android Central was the only reviewer out of the bunch that mentioned it out of the 5 or 6 that I've watched in the past few days. Kind of thought it was a bit of a fluke, but it seems like it's a problem that's coming more and more to light as more time is spent with the phone.
I wonder if Google will let me swap down to a regular Pixel 2 if the XL really is intolerably bad for me. I will also give Google a bit of time to either respond with a promise of an option for a more vivid color grade option or maybe even issue a replacement program with updated panels... I think the former is the best we'll actually get, and I certainly hope this issue doesn't exist on a scale big enough to issue a recall/product replacement program. It seems there's nothing to be done about the bad viewing angle issues -- that just seems hardware based with the panel itself, and is something of a shame, but not entirely unworkable for me. I just need the actual color space to be more vivid and vibrant when I look at it straight on, assuming my unit looks as funky as the reports are saying now.