> turns out they sent me one that was part of a line that had an issue with a microphone component. Contact support and yet again it was replaced within a week.

This is my issue. They have continually sent replacement refurbs that exhibited well known and common problems. This has to be done knowingly.

It's really made me think about an iphone for the first time ever. I refuse to use any non-nexus (or pixel now) Android since I care about software updates and shovelware, so it's either a Pixel or an iPhone at this point. Google shoveling me repeatedly known bad hardware just sits very wrong with me.