I'm disapointed to see the newest flagship phones from Sony, Google and Nokia have copied Apple and ditched the 3.5mm headphone jack.
I do not know why they're doing this, but I assume some people want this. Everyone I've asked IRL won't buy a phone without a headphone jack, what do you think (vote in the poll)?
Update: moved reasons for my opinion to the comments as I don't want to influence the poll.
The thinnest phones from all the big brands were from 2015. They averaged about 6.8mm in thickness with the headphone jack. All phones since have grown in size and are thicker even without the jack.
And smaller batteries.
Now look at the Note 9, has it all
Battery size gains are pretty marginal. Note 9 only has a big battery because it is an enormous phone to begin with.
A marginal upgrade you that you're happy with calling 'big'.
There have been phones with smaller form factors that have fit similar capacity batteries
I reckon, an option for a double size battery on all phones would be a good idea for me. I don't need a super thin phone that according to the physical world we live in is less strong. Ideally by clip on battery backs, but if I had to choose a bigger sized model because of a "non replaceable" battery, so be it. Get rid of the glass backs and edge to edge screens while we are at it.
I suspect, regardless of the wishes of manufacturers, the future will be a modular world where no single manufacturer controls all functions. Be it mobile comms, video, or automobiles, it will involve interoperability, just like in sci fi fiction. Hey, and flying cars are coming.
Yeah I don't see how it would be thinner. People say "no need for a DAC and AMP", but these components are still there for the handset speaker and loud speaker.
Exactly and also DAC/AMP are integrated into the SoC, it doesn't add size because that's just how the Qualcomm SoC is.
As an example, Apple just used the space gained for a bigger haptic motor. I personally would rather the convenience of not having to charge my headphones than a bigger buzz when I press the home button. I'm not an iPhone user myself but it does seem like thickness was not the motivating factor for them at least.
Wireless Beats were the motivating factor for Apple.
Is this true? Do most people not use their phone for music? Most people I know only consume music using their phones..
- many if not most people dont even use thier phone for music. However if they do…..
So what do they do? Listen to 2GB radio??
I respect that this is your opinion, but I disagree fervently with it.
- many if not most people dont even use thier phone for music.
Then frankly why would people even need wireless headphones, or headphones at all for that matter
- its not an issue because adapters are available
It is a terrible pain in the butt, either its hanging off your phone like a tail, or you have it with your regular headphones but it means when youre in a friends (admittedly older) car without bluetooth, then you cant play music off your phone, or a friends hifi system
- more and more people are using "wireless" bluetooth headphones (preferred option)
I don't argue that bluetooth headphones aren't nice, but it's an extra thing to charge. whereas my headphones never run out of battery. Plus i've already spent a lot of money on good headphones, the fact that i can't easily use it with a new phone is frankly quite vexing.
Useless. Stick with Sammy's, they know what's right
Don't know what you're talking about. Never was an issue
Bootloop issues plagued the other Korean tech giant.
That was LG
Hoping for my S7 to die so I can get whatever the latest phone is but it refuses to die no matter how abusive I am
I'm sure u used iTunes to upload music to Samsung phone. 😂
Not a problem as I use wireless earphones.
Thinking of buying a pair. Read reviews regarding audio quality, choppiness and also weird sounds when no music is playing. Wondering what you have experienced?
same, been using wireless headphones exclusively for several years now. dont get why everyone doesnt convert. no more tangles!
Battery life lasts for a good amount of time too. They recharge when I put them back in the case.
no more tangle but garbage sound quality
nothing more disappointing than starting a gym workout and headphones dying. always stick with wired.
How many days charge do you guys get? What type of wireless system do you use? Do any offer the full lpcm experience?
Exactly!
And most other people do too
+1 I’m not allowed to use headphones at work so I have to use AirPods anyway.
Do you never plug your phone into anything else? I often plug my phone into my stereo at home, occasionally into cars that don't have BT. I use wired headphones if I'm watching in bed - because they're smaller and I don't have to charge them.
If I'm listening to music through headphones then my wireless over ear ANC ones are my preference, but it's not a once size fits all situation for me - so I like the flexibility.
I have speakers throughout my home hooked into my smart home system but normally if it's my computer I'll have headphones in.
when i bought my Iphone 7, i thought it was stupid that i had to carry around the little dongle.. but after i lost it and got wireless headphones, couldn't care less that there's no 3.5mm
The iPhones come with an adaptor so I don’t really find it an inconvenience, but not great if you need to charge and listen at the same time. I don’t use wired so much because I find wireless more comfortable and convenient but that’s just my preference.
but not great if you need to charge and listen at the same
Yeah, I don't find Sony's solution to that to be very elegant either:
https://www.theverge.com/2018/7/24/17606834/sony-usb-c-headp…
The iPhones come with an adaptor
Rumours have it the 2018 iPhones won't.
Rumours made up by Samsung probably.
Yeah my biggest issue is when I have to charge and listen. At home its not a problem, but at work I have to forego one of them.
A better poll question: Who thinks people who walk around with wireless apple headphones look like complete fools?
I've been heavily down-voted for telling people what I think they look like in the airpods deals, lesson learned ;)
That is the problem with iSheep. Once one takes offense and starts downvoting, they all do. It is all they know..
iSheep… lol.
More like Lemmings. iLemmings.
Same happened to me once. It was worth it.
Yeah, I always think people are dumb because they like different things, it's a sophisticated way of pretending that I'm smart when I'm not.
once upon a time, I was in the same bus with a middle aged guy with a toupee and business suit, wearing airpods and playing with his iPhoneX
I'm on the edge of my seat! What happens next?
he finally realised people smiled at him did so out of amusement rather than kindness. To be continued in Season 2
still a better love story than Titanic
Yeah i will never understand what they get out of putting Braun electric toothbrush refills in their ears.
Not for the first/last time Apple has a product that screams APPLE COME STEAL ME. Several of my co-workers have lost or had them stolen at a rate of about 1 per quarter but hey if you can afford them you can afford to keep buying them :) I hear they are easy to use and pair so they've got that going for them.
Vain, vacuous people who care about appearance and for some reason are concerned with what others look like? Seems to be a surprising number of those types on OzBargain; who would have thought a site where people get excited about saving a dollar would also have the types of people that look at what others are doing and how they look and pass judgement.
tbf, it costs a lot and it looks ridiculous to wear because it can be easily lost. You aren't saying anything wrong, and i don't think any person wearing airpods deserve any blame for it(they have to wear it due to their phones not having a jack).
Still, it's not easy getting out of the apple ecosystem. There's no good alternatives (Android is similar too, but don't think casual people will like it much) and once you're in, you're in it forever.
They look ridiculous. Source: I wear them and cover them with my hair so nobody knows what a sucker I am
I really don't understand why people care for this tbh… so what if someone liked a product and want to use it? :/ before this a giant headphones looked funny, but now more people are wearing the Bose headphone. I think they look bulky, but.. seriously good on them for wearing what they like!
I prefer wireless but I think it's a non-issue. I can't see why attaching a USB-C adapter to their existing cord is an issue.
This is what I thought the majority would think (Don't care / JACK20) before I made the poll.
If Samsung can put in a stylus it shouldn't be hard for the other manufacturers to put in a headphone jack.
I've moved the reasons for my opinion here to avoid influencing the poll:
Audio fidelity of Bluetooth.
Bluetooth doesn't have the same level of audio fidelity in the high end. I purchased this product for use with my Shure SE846 headphones, and it's made them sound muddy and cheap compared with the wired connection: http://www.shure.com/americas/products/accessories/earphones…
Wearing out the USB-C port.
Once the USB-C port is gone, there goes the ability to charge the phone and transfer files. With phones being as fast as they are now, there's little intensive to upgrade (a phone with an SD820 is not slow to use today for example). Since I often have the headphone connected in my pocket, there is probably flexing on the port going on. The 3.5mm jack allows the cable to rotate, USB-C does not.
Why are we risking damage t our valuable USB-C ports when we don't need to?
Not needing a DAC/Amp (Myth)
Phones still need a DAC and Amp for the handset speaker and loud speakers. And as @plmko mentioned above, these are embedded on the SoC anyway, so no additional cost / weight is required.
Charge while playing
Pretty self explanatory. This was never a good idea: https://imgur.com/a/D3CPMoz
Apple had a good reason to remove the headphone jack (they own beats audio, more than 50% of the Bluetooth headphone market share). I thought people must have explicitly wanted not to have the headphone jack, but the poll here indicates that people either don't care, or want it. The only other reason I can think of as to why this is happening is that everyone is trying to copy Apple…
Audio Fidelity
This is definitely a factor in sound quality, but this is massively overplayed in the mobile phone market. The weak DAC/Amp built into phones means that the sound quality through the wired connection is far from the high standard that you'd expect. Bluetooth 4.1 is common in good quality headphones, with bluetooth 5.0 creeping in. The former is capable of a bitrate just shy of 800kbps (APTXHD) which exceeds the bitrate of any audio file on a streaming service, or on any standard lossy compression algorithm. For reference, a CD's bit rate is given as 1411, and a popular high end audio format in FLAC is 906kbps. Not many people carry around a stack of songs exceeding 20MB each (FLAC) on a mobile device, so the bluetooth device's bitrate will not be the limiting factor in all but the audiophile subset, who would be using an external DAC/Amp, anyway, so losing the headphone jack means nothing to them.
People who buy a cheap bluetooth transmitter or headphones and then complain about the quality are like the people who believe a high end watch is a waste of money because their $10 Bali special broke after a week; cheap products are cheap for a reason.
Wearing out the USB-C port
This is quite the clutch at straws. The port is highly durable, unlike the Micro-B standard which persisted in the android market for far too long. Other components on the device will wear out far sooner than the reversible USB-C and, even then, bluetooth is a very viable option which won't hinder your listening experience all that much (if at all). So even if USB-C was a high risk of wearing out, there's no reason to do so because bluetooth is more than adequate.
Not needing a DAC/Amp
Can't disagree with your points there. Some manufacturers take different approaches and will yield variable levels of benefits from removing the headphone jack, so it isn't a blanket rule but would have no real tangible effect.
Charge while playing
As someone who used to sell phones, this was one of the points raised by people when considering purchasing a phone without the headphone jack. At that point in time, I would ask people how many times they've found themselves in a situation where they're trying to do both. If someone is at home/work, then there should be plenty of other devices that they could use or, alternatively, plug it into the wall for 10 minutes and you'll have plenty of charge to keep listening. Alternatively, almost all phones support wireless charging nowadays, so if you're at your desk then pop it on the charger and you can remain plugged in sans-dongle. If you're out and about, then you would need to carry a portable charger with you to run into this problem, and the type of person who uses their tech to that degree would probably have (or consider purchasing) a bluetooth headset anyway and, even if they don't, it wouldn't kill you to put the phone down for a few minutes and experience the real world while it charges.
The removal of the headphone jack will be remembered just like the removal of the floppy disk drive and, more recently, the optical drive. People carried on as if the sky was falling back then and, to their credit, there were some teething issues early in terms of compatibility or finding alternative solutions (e.g relying on an external drive). But just like you don't see anyone complaining about their $1500 laptop not containing a DVD drive nowadays, you won't see people complaining about their $1000 phone missing a headphone jack within the next few years. Like it or not, once a few companies remove a particular interface in favour of a newer and better one, it promotes innovation in the field because it's more lucrative - as a manufacturer of bluetooth headphones, I would be more encouraged to invest in research and development now that I know my potential market has expanded rather dramatically. This will lead to innovations in the space, and drive the price down whilst bringing in newer and better features. There will always be teething issues, but it's always for the best.
Nice reply, thanks.
The weak DAC/Amp built into phones means that the sound quality through the wired connection is far from the high standard that you'd expect
While I agree with this (if I connect my Dragonfly Red via USB, the sound is much better than the SD835 DAC/Amp of my phone), bluetooth still sounds worse. I do carry around flac files (I have a large SD card) but I could tell the difference very clearly just streaming spotify (mp3 I think).
People who buy a cheap bluetooth transmitter or headphones
I paid $850 for my Shure SE846 headphones (got a good price) , and the bluetooth cable is far from cheap and designed for the SE846 headphones.
The USB-C port is highly durable
It is, and a huge improvement on Micro-B. It still seems less durable than the 3.5mm jack when the cable is hanging out of my pocket (it can't rotate for example) and introduces more wear on a single point of failure. In 2017, we had phones with both USB-C and 3.5mm so they're not mutually exclusive.
Charge while playing
I do this all the time, especially at work. Wireless charging may be the answer here as you said. I assume most phones without a headphone jack have this feature.
There will always be teething issues, but it's always for the best.
I keep hearing this one. I was there for the removal of optical drives, hi-fi systems without record players, floppy drives, etc. Never had a problem with these. I don't even own a car or a 'manual vacuum cleaner' now thanks to ride-sharing and Xiaomi.
The issue here is that Bluetooth headphones have not surpassed the 3.5mm jack in terms of audio quality, durability (A good set of speakers or headphones doesn't really get 'old', but protocols like Bluetooth change rapidly and batteries wear out) Once something superior comes out, I'm all for it, but I don't think we're there yet.
To be clear, I'm not annoyed at Apple, they had a good business case for removing the headphone jack. I'm annoyed at these 'me too' companies doing things like this and https://www.extremetech.com/mobile/265140-copying-iphone-x-n… .
Also I think headphones with cables would fail much quicker than Bluetooth headphones batteries or other faults.
@smpantsonfire:
I'll reply to both your comments here:
Also I think headphones with cables would fail much quicker than Bluetooth headphones batteries or other faults.
A lot of high end headphones have replaceable cables (mine included). If you buy a good set of headphones and don't do something stupid like blow a driver, they can last decades. Bluetooth protocols are updated a lot more frequently and li-ion batteries only survive a certain amount of charge cycles.
So I don't really blame them for not wanting to keep the relatively low now, % of the population happy who need a headphone jack.
While all your arguments are valid for sure, and it would be nice to keep the jack, I think keeping it would only cater now to less than 50% of phone users.
I wouldn't blame them either. I certainly don't blame Apple for example, it's a good business move killing the headphone jack to sell bluetooth headphones.
The poll results here indicate that a large percentage of the Android user population demand a headphone jack, and another large percentage would prefer one. So I don't think it's less than 50% of phone users.
That's one of the things I wanted to determine with this poll. I'm very well aware of echo chambers; so when I was reading hifi forums, tech forums or talking to my friends and they all agreed with this idea, I figured I'd ask the more general audience to see if I'm missing something. I'm honestly quite surprised so many people share my view here.
I think you're a bit silly if you have those headphones and still playing music from your phone instead of having a dedicated player.
Sure, I get better audio quality when I have access to my proper setup. But on the go, my SE846 headset also sounds much better than a mid range headset like the SE535 even when using my phone as a source. It's still my best option on the go unless I want to carry multiple devices around with me.
I'm not exactly an audiophile but I do have an external DAC that I use frequently (USB C) an external amp (3.5mm), a pair of nice headphones (around $400) and several pairs of wired and wireless earphones.
Guess where I play my music from (mostly flac)?
My phone dude. Just like everybody else. Not too many ppl are carrying a stand alone player anymore. Why would you? It does exactly what the phone can do and once you've hooked it up to a DAC the quality is ridiculously good.
And IMO there's a huge difference between wired and wireless. I only use my wireless earphones for the gym. The convenience is great but i'd rather deal with the wire at all other times for the benefit of the sound quality. I only use the DAC and amp when I'm travelling with my headphones. It's just too much stuff otherwise and also I find that when they're all in my pocket the constant movement kills the cables quickly.
I feel this discussion is missing a really important point: wireless headphones are much more expensive while providing sub par sound quality. All that wireless circuitry and batteries is eating into the cost amount of the audio stuff, things like the actual drivers.
Audio Fidelity
Mid range and high end phone DAC and amps were not the sound quality issue. Some phone manufacturer's neglect of supporting hardware was. CPUs have had very good DACs and amps built in for years. Its the supporting circuit, when optimised by an OEM to reduce cost, that causes the sound quality issues.
Current Bluetooth headphone DAC, amp and radio designs were optimised for wireless headsets, not headphones. We will need to wait a few years before we start seeing high sound quality solutions in Bluetooth headphones (note, Apple had a massive head start and could release such a product any day, but this is unlikely as they already have a unique solution so there is no reason to iterate so soon).
Bluetooth's bandwidth has not been an issue for over a decade. In practice I have found aerial design in Bluetooth headphones to be a problem, with packet loss (music cuts out) if the headphones and phone are not positioned exactly how the system was designed to be used.
I am annoyed because the 'premium' earbuds included with my past phones were good enough. My included Bluetooth earbuds have very weird sound quality issues (phase, notching, distortion and changing characteristics with volume) as well as packet loss. It sounds better than cheap earbuds, but the sound produced distracts from music. Packet loss means I often need to rewind or use subtitles when watching Netflix so I don't miss complete words.
Wearing out the USB-C port
Yes, you are right.
Many people are still concerned because micro and mini USB ports often developed issues around a year in of daily use. It is also common experience for marketing to straight up lie about an issue being solved with the latest technology.
No disagreement
Charge while playing
The current generation of phones has moved away from wireless charging.
Phones have moved to non replaceable batteries to give ingress protection and forced obsolescence after two years. When a daily used device hits two years they often need to be re-purposed, permanently plugged in. Before my current phone I kept next to my bed an old tablet that developed a 30 minute battery. It would be useless to me without a headphone jack if my Bluetooth headphones were flat. I understand this usage is the exception
Yes bluetooth audio sucks, plus the end result involves multiple conversion/resampling to get to the output.
For 2. Use a right angled plug/adapter for the 1/8" plug.
I'm disapointed to see the newest flagship phones from Sony, Google and Nokia have copied Apple and ditched the 3.5mm headphone jack.
Old news.
This just came out, first Nokia to follow Apple, so not old:
https://www.techradar.com/au/reviews/8-sirocco-review
Not that old. Did you see what Google did for their new pixel phones? Also remember how they mocked Apple for not having a headphone jack and having a notch?
Also Nokia is going on a similar path. Apart from Nokia 7 Plus, don't think a lot of people went for the other phones as much (in the high end department).
not a problem since I use feature phones
I do not know why they're doing this
I thought it was to ensure the device is waterproof and having the headphones socket was hard to make it waterproof.
Is it though?
Sony have been making devices with waterproof headphone jacks since the Xperia Z1 back in 2013. Back then, the USB port wasn't waterproof, only the headphone jack (the Z2 and Z3 were the same, only since the Z5 have the usb ports been waterproof).
So if anything, isn't the headphone jack easier to waterproof than the USB ports?
Yep, same with waterproof Samsung phones.
I don't understand why manufacturers don't provide options. Apple could have squeezed a headphone jack into the iPhone for users that want it, but they choose not to.
Why not both?
They WANT you to either use their headphones, or use normal headphones with the supplied adapter.
Chances are you'll either take that adapter everywhere and lose it somewhere, or you'll buy more adapters to save yourself from taking that one adapter everywhere.
To add insult to injury, rumours have it the 2018 iPhones won't include the adapter at all. So if you have a 3.5mm device and you want to use it with your Apple iPhone, you'll have to buy a separate adapter. ON TOP of the $1K+ that you've already offloaded for the phone.
Either way, you're doing exactly what they want you to do - throw more money into Apple's coffers.
Because it's Apple's way, or the highway.
They make money from licensing fees for any product that uses the lightning jack, which is why they removed the headphone jack.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PmTSN4zWeQ0
Apple have never been known for providing options.
That's why I don't like to buy their products.
Hi Op, can you add the notification led & removeable battery to the poll as well please.
Make your own poll :p
This issue is the only deal breaker for me.
I think the whole idea of making the phone 'thinner' by taking out some functionality is stupid. Not sure if I have seen an iphone/samsung that doesnt have a cover on these days due to the ridiculous cost of fixing the fragile glass screens. Rather have a thicker phone with ports, removable batts, memory card etc.
I have never had a case on my phone, and never broken one from dropping it (and they do occasionally get dropped). But, I buy $200 Xiaomi phones, and, if I do drop and break it, I'll just buy another one.
Ah, I was thinking of getting the hubby one of those for his next. cracked his s8+ 4 months after getting it, and 2 weeks after that was fixed. the more expensive the phone, the more fragile the screen..
People use bluetooth headphones now. The 3.5mm jack is going to be redundant soon enough just like all connectors do eventually.
Usually when something is redundant, it's replaced by a superior product.
Bluetooth still doesn't have the bandwidth for uncompressed, lossless audio streaming.
Correct, but what percentage of the population care about that on a phone? Most people will be listening Spotify or some other streaming service.
It hasn't been removed from computers or other devices, it is just phones so your point isn't really valid towards my argument.
Based on this poll so far, 47.5% won't buy a phone without a headphone jack.
Because there is no option that says - I wouldn’t buy a phone WITH a headphone jack.
Given those models combined have sold over 100 million units - I don’t think the luddites are impacting sales
Nobody cares about lossless audio on a phone. Most people are listening in public transport and there’s plenty of external noise
I do. Kills your argument that nobody does. Oh and there's many websites dedicated to people like me. We're definitely out there.
Most people don’t even know what mp3 stands for, no one is upset about the loss of a headphone jack because they suddenly can’t enjoy FLAC files at maximum quality.
What's the benefit of it being removed? I don't want another device to charge. I won't purchase a phone without a headphone jack.
Manufacturers are just removing it because they're blindly following Apples lead. Thank you for Samsung to continuing to integrate the headphone jacks into their phones. Take the Note 9 for example, it had a massive pen going into it yet it still has a headphone jack and a massive battery. Apple's reason to remove it is purely for profits because they own Beats and want people to buy their airpods. If Apple remove their headphone jack from their future IPads and Macbooks, their intentions would be made clear, it's not a space saving measure.
I use bluetooth while on the go and a charger cable while in the car (connects to my car audio) so I really I actually probably would need it!
Needs a new poll option: I wouldn’t buy a phone WITH a headphone jack.
It’s 2018 ppl - time to ditch the wires
Interesting perspective. Just vote for the last option.
For what reason would a headphone jack be a deal breaker for you?
Or do you just mean something like "I'm going to buy an iphone, which has no headphone jack, therefor I'm not buying a phone with a headphone jack"?
I guess to get that new level of device thickness those manufacturer need to remove the 3.5?mm input?