this post was submitted on 15 Apr 2025
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If they just didn't drop the headphone jack.
How else would they push their mediocre reviewed Bluetooth headsets and ear buds?
my phone has a headphone jack, my phone before that had a headphone jack. Wanna guess how often I used it? Zero because I have decent bluetooth headphones
I use my backup headphones when my Bluetooth headset has run out of battery
Okay? You're not the one asking for a headphone jack tho??? Pointless comment.
I use mine. Bluetooth is great and all, but it's still not the same quality as a hard-line. And they also run out of batteries.
That’s just like your opinion man
My last phone had a headphone jack. Wanna guess how often I used it? All the time! And that was despite having decent Bluetooth headphones.
I loved wearing my cans when mowing the lawn because it cut down on the noise, and I also used them when laying in bed since they had much better audio. I would use my Bluetooth headphones the rest of the time because they were more convenient.
My new phone doesn't have headphone jack, and I'm super bummed.
So now you still do the exact same things but with a little dongle, right?
USB-C to headphone jack dongles suck. You lose them easily, you can't charge your phone if they're connected and if you disconnect your headphones the device still behaves as if they're plugged in. It's so much less convenient and on the other hand there's just no downside to having a dedicated headphone jack, so I still don't get why they're no longer including them.
Just leave them connected to the headphones.
Dongles with an additional usb port exist.
Again, leave the dongle connected to the headphones, not the phone.
It is less convenient, but I'd argue not by all that much. More importantly it's not any less convenient for the vast majority who are already only using Bluetooth.
It's an additional, and to most people superfluous, point for water ingress. Water damage is the most common type of damage in phones.
It takes up space which could be utilised otherwise, like with a slightly larger battery or larger speakers or camera modules.
It's an additional part which needs to be manufactured, stocked, installed and purchased. Extra cost which only benefits a few. This is especially important to Fairphone in particular because they don't use off-the-shelf components and promise to supply replacement parts pretty much indefinitely. I.e. Fairphone would have to design a custom module and then have that module in stock and manufactured specifically for them for the lifetime of each of their devices. That's not a trivial expense.
the whole back panel is a big point of water ingress when that is not glued shut hard
I never needed the additional camera modules, and there were phones with single camera module that made very nice images. the jack is also often at the top of the device where the battery doesn't reach, but in my phone there's also enough place for it between the bottom and the battery for a jack connector. in a fairphone
exact same opinion about multiple camera modules. nobody really needs them.
I can't have them connected to my headphones all the time because I connect headphones to other devices that all have a fucking headphone jack.
I've had watertight phones with a headphone jack over a decade ago.
Yes. Anything you add to a phone is a tradeoff. No shit. These points are what is usually used to justify the lack of a jack. But maybe, just maybe, they don't save as much money as they make with selling wireless headphones and this is just an excuse? Especially the big companies like Apple or Samsung that sell their own peripherals? And this whole thing is just an excuse to sell overpriced gadgets that need to be replaced every few years because of their batteries? Maybe, just maybe, it'd be valid if consumers still had a choice and could pick phones with or without a jack and would have to pay for the luxury of using decent headphones with a few milliamperehours?
Manufacturing a phone is not a trivial expense. Removing features is a business decision and a headphone jack costs money but doesn't earn any whereas they can produce more cheaply without one. I get it. It's just that doing so requires you to buy and use battery powered headphones that are much less sustainable than traditional magnets tied to a cable. How a company that lives off its promise to safe the world jumps on that wagon is a miracle to me. Companies that remove headphones don't care about audio quality (which is why Sony still produces phones with audio jacks, I guess) or sustainability. Which is odd for a company like fp.
This is simply false though, we'd agreed that you are required to buy and use a dongle, and that this is an added inconvenience. But you are not required to switch to wireless headphones and your old cans haven't suddenly become useless. People still have a choice between wired and wireless, wired has just become a little less convenient, that's all. I completely agree with you that people shouldn't go out buying new gadgets if their old stuff is still functional, but you can just continue using your old headphones if you get a new phone if you buy a dongle with it. Inconvenient yes, but not the end for wired headphones.
You keep arguing that people can just use a dongle. I can keep arguing that a dongle solution sucks ass. I have used a dongle and even the way it's just used sucks because it's pulled out of the socket with much less force than headphones, so it keeps getting disconnected. If you like it, fine. I don't and I still think that removing the jack is a dumb decision. This is getting nowhere.
I already admitted a dongle is a compromise, I don't like them, but don't start claiming people are forcing you to buy Bluetooth headphones when they're not.
They're forcing a decision between two less desirable solutions when a better one already existed solely because it enables them to sell more shit. Removal of the 3.5mm jack is enshittification on a hardware level and people shouldn't go around making excuses for it.
Agree with everything, but it's not just that it existed, it's that it was also already widely adopted for literal decades. This was an established solution that is now getting replaced with something worse. This isn't betamax that just lost the adoption race against a competitor.
I just explained how they are effectively doing that because a dongle is such a terrible solution that it's essentially not usable. I can repeat my points, from charging over being pulled out, and add that they are either incompatible with some devices that don't supply the analogue audio signal over USB (so you're usually just buying one of those to see if they work, are happy if it does and then annoyed when you need to use it on another device where it doesn't and boom you're suddenly left without working headphones despite having one of those stupid dongles) or come with probably the cheapest, suckishest piece of shit DAC some underpaid Chinese procurement jerk could find anywhere on the market, so the audio quality will probably be terrible even when using wired speakers on a fucking dongle.
Is there a law that prohibits me from trying to keep using wired headphones? No, so you're right there that they're not technically forcing anyone. But in anything but making it technically impossible, they're making it as unusable and unlikeable as possible, so effectively, there's no way around using Bluetooth headphones.
Yup. If anything, they should add a second USB-C connector. Much more versatile and you can still charge your phone if one of them dies.
These flaky, but simultaneously bulky headphone connectors need to die. They're inferior in pretty much every way imaginable.
Every day the bait gets lower and lower effort
Quickly checking if you're an actual human or just a bot I came across this comment of yours:
Guess I'll take your advice then.
I'm going to lose that dongle. You say further down that I can just leave them connected, but I use my headphones with more than my phone (laptop, desktop), and those other devices have a headphone jack. Leaving it plugged in to my phone sucks too, for obvious reasons.
I don't care about water ingress. I'm happy to give up water resistance and have a slightly thicker phone if it means I get a headphone jack, bonus points if it's easier to open the phone for repairs.
Ok I use my wired headphones
I just have a dap that can receive bluetooth. More battery life, drives literally anything to very loud, 4.4mm out and can hold it's own music library and play it without eating phones battery or memory.
I used mine all the time because I hate using bluetooth even though I have expensive bluetooth headphones, I have now cancelled you out
Wanna know how many times I played a piano in the past 20 years?
Zero. Clearly they shouldn't exist.
No, but maybe you should re-gift it to someone who does....
You're not making sense.
Your position was that someone else is wrong to desire audio jacks, because you personally don't need one after spaffing money on some Bluetooth earphones.
My point – which I thought was very obvious, but apparently you missed it – was that just because you don't see the value of something doesn't mean others don't or that it shouldn't exist.
I don't have a piano, and I don't know why you think I do.
My entire metaphor is that I don't play or have a piano, but I recognise that it's stupid for me to discourage others from having them solely because I personally don't have or want one.
I'm a bit confused by your metaphor then (and thanks for the constructive insults, brings me back to the old reddit days...), since why take issue with something you dont own or use in the first place? Is the piano the headjack, or is it the bluetooth?
I didn't insult you, I remarked that you didn't appear to have understood my comment, and by the looks of it you still don't.
Apologies if you're upset by my comment. That was not my intent. I was just pointing out the absurdity of your judgemental comment.
I'm not the one taking issue with something I don't own. That's my entire point. You are discouraging someone from wanting something just because you personally don't value it.
The piano is the headphone jack.
You don't need a headphone jack, and feel the need to disparage others who do. "I don't use a headphone jack, so you shouldn't want a phone with one."
Similarly, I don't need a piano. However, I don't go around telling people they shouldn't want/play one, because I recognise that the things I want in my life are different to the things other people want in theirs.
It's more like a new keyboard comes out and people all complain that it's not a piano.
It's nothing like that at all.
A keyboard is not a piano. Nobody can reasonably expect it to be a piano.
To be clear, I mean the musical instrument.
If you seriously don't get it, keyboards for music are electronic and many consider it to be an evolution of Piano since you can do much more with it due to the electronics.
The comparison being (Piano) hard wire/cable headphones are an older form of tech, and while absolutely they have a good use (particularly where low latency or higher quality audio are concerned, I would know I own a pair of studio quality sennheisers) in situations where you do not need those things, and instead want more flexibility, wireless headphones (electronic keyboard) are perfectly serviceable (amd have massively improved over the last decade alone).
Therefore it always makes me laugh a little when people constantly complain on new devices that it's missing a headphone jack. It's like complaining that the new keyboard from Casio isn't a piano.
I understand why people miss the headphone jack, I did too for a while, but honestly wireless earbuds are so much more convenient anyway and the sound quality has improved quite a bit to my ears over the years.
My decent Bluetooth headphones have the option to plug in a headphone cable to use them wired. I use it occasionally so I can reduce audio latency, which can be useful with gaming...and essential with rhythm games.
Boo this man!
...are they booing me, or are they booing headphones?
You. They're booing you.
Help me, Smithers!
😔
This is fine if you don't care about having the best audio quality and lowest latency possible.
not just that. with a jack, you can use your phone as a perfect mic for your PC. its also better in terms of privacy as you don't blast "IM HERE" signals that every other shop has a tracking device for logging them. I would guess majority of bluetooth audio devices don't even support mac address randomization
@[email protected]
Wouldn't that be a nightmare for pairing? The device wakes and tries to connect to the last device it was paired to, only to find unknown vendors
mac randomization is a defined thing in the BLE standard (afaik bluetooth classic does not have it, but maybe that changed in BT 5.1?). It's not truly random, it involves cryptography so that paired devices can recognize each other in the end
Ah interesting, thanks for context
I feel like latency only matters if you're realtime gaming. In any other situation the video just syncs to the audio.
As for quality AptX-HD is decent for low bitrates even at 24-bit, and LDAC remains excellent for anything higher.
Unless you're listening to high-res FLAC (in which case, god help your earphone impedance when listening to normal songs), I doubt the loss is audible
Good for you.
Ah, that's a dealbreaker for me