Comment by Mannimarco@lemmy.world on Fairphone 5 Launch

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No headphone jack no sale, it makes zero sense not having one

Genuine question, but for the common user, why should a phone have a headphone jack?

Can’t speak for everyone but here are the reasons I prefer an actual jack:

3.5mm headphones are extremely universal and can be used for any audio device. USB-C and Bluetooth headphones cannot
Bluetooth is extremely inconsistent when paired with multiple devices and often gets disconnected because of competing devices
I can’t charge my phone and listen to USB c headphones at the same time
Manufacturers claim the removal of the jack was to improve the water resistance. I have never dropped my phone in water and would be willing to risk it.
I already have too many wireless things to charge
I have a small stockpile of broken wireless headphones. Meanwhile my 10 year old wired headphones are collecting dust
I have never lost something more often than that tiny ass USB to 3.5mm dongle adapter
I distrust large corporations with incentive to get consumers to buy more stuff from them

Don’t forget Bluetooth has absolutely shit audio quality while using the microphone with how it handles call audio (although I’m praying BLE audio fixes this). Also true wireless earbuds can’t compare at all to wired earbuds microphones in the slightest.

Well TBH, I have been exclusively using Bluetooth headsets for like 7 years now and I’ve had a good experience with that.

I would recommend either big clamshells (I use a rather expensive but awesome Bose 700) or necklace designs like my LG tone 800 hbs headsets (I got like 4 of those over the years). I bought a pair of extremely expensive Sony WM-1000XM 4 that suck donkey balls for a long list of reasons, but not Bluetooth.

Barring some connection issues sometimee, Bluetooth is really quite nice and allows me to walk around freely. I haven’t missed the jack plugs ever, really.

Genuinely, good for you. I don’t want to switch to something more expensive, that probably wheighs more on the environment (batteries tend to do that), that I’ll lose more easily, that can catch connecticity issues, that force me to turn on bluetooth… And that’s okay we just have different priorities. What bugs me is only yours ever seem to be catered to nowadays, even though mine don’t seem particularly rare and you can ignore jack plugs easier than I can listen to music while plugged on my external battery

I’ve been using the same (comparatively) cheap Sony WIC100 in-ear Bluetooth headset every day for several (over four?) years now. It’s lasted longer than basically any of the cheap wired earbuds I kept replacing before ever did, and still has all-day battery life too. I haven’t been particularly careful with it; Generally, I’ve just crumpled it up and stuffed it in my pocket with my keys, and probably semi-regularly snagged and yanked it on stuff pretty hard. Losing it is not really a concern; It’s all one flexible piece, and it’s basically the same profile or even slightly bulkier and heavier than wired earbuds when coiled up (but still more convenient when worn, because it doesn’t run the length of the torso). Plus they can just dangle safely from my neck when I need to hear stuff around me, which neither wired headphones nor “true wireless” headphones can do.

I agree with all your points in principle, and I still pay attention to the headphone jack when evaluating phones. But the corporations that make our consumer electronics have decided this is the trend they’re going with. Ultimately, you can either adapt, stop using the technology, or make your own with Raspi and SLA or whatever.

Are you a plant? You legally have to tell me if you’re a plant

Good point there. Bluetooth works well for me but it sucks that you don’t get to use your option anymore.

I guess it has to do with jack plugs being really old (were talking over 50 years here) ND whilst that shouldn’t matter, manufacturers want to appear new and improving even though there is little to improve on that plug…

Manufacturers claim the removal of the jack was to improve the water resistance. I have never dropped my phone in water and would be willing to risk it.

Let us not forget that S7 and S7 Edge had headphone jack and were waterproof.

Let us not forget that S7 and S7 Edge had headphone jack and were waterproof.

Not user-disassemblable, much less Lego-style modular, though. Easy to make something “waterproof” when you can just seal it shut with “gooey black adhesive”.

I personally think the headphone jack is a wonderful truly universal and effectively completely open standard that’s very good at what it does, and which furthermore is doubly useful as a generic power and analog signal delivery mechanism, while mandating its supposed successors like Bluetooth and USB-C needlessly and massively inflates the technical and material cost of just playing a dang sound file. You could get serviceable wired headphones that last forever for like $5 if you were lucky; Nowadays, you pay at least ten times that for fragile lithium batteries and circuitry that will break in a couple years, and I really don’t like this trend of taking away capabilities for less robust alternatives while portraying it as innovating.

But I also actually use my Bluetooth headphones way more than my wired ones, and I appreciate the potential engineering and market challenges in what Fairphone is trying to do here.

I meant the argument of removing 3.5mm to make it everything waterproof is not holding because there are phones out there which are perfectly waterproof with 3.5mm jack.

Yes. And I’m saying that’s not really a valid comparison, because those phones are generally just monolithic slabs that have been glued shut, whereas Fairphone has to implement a user-serviceable modular design with actual seals and stuff.

Would giving it both water-sealing and a headphone jack be worth increasing the price by another €20, because it adds a new potential ingress point that the rest of the phone might have to be redesigned around? What if the jack is one of the biggest parts that isn’t replacable? Fairphone 5’s apparently only rated IP55, while Fairphone 4’s only IP54. That’s barely even really “waterproof”, but more like “splash-proof”. Would adding another hole in the frame be worth possibly reducing that rating to IP53 or IP52 (“drip-proof”)? Would it be worth reducing the warranty by 4 years, because some amount of dust and moisture still works its way in over time no matter how robust the rest of the phone is?

Personally I think I would probably rather have the jack even if it meant no waterproofing at all. But that might not be the direction the market is leaning in, and we don’t know what tradeoffs exactly they’ve considered to arrive at their final design with decent-ish waterproofing and good reparability but no headphone jack.

They have written about this directly in some detail, it seems. If nothing else, it shows that they have put some thought into the issue, and they’re aware that removing the headphone jack will be disappointing for some users, but overall they see making the phone thinner and adding IP rating as being the higher priority:

https://support.fairphone.com/hc/en-us/articles/9836188988049-Audio-Jack-3-5mm

Your point is generally well taken, but your first point about 3.5 mm jacks being universal isn’t really true any more. It’s nearly impossible to find a device these days with a 3.5 mm audio Jack. It sucks but it’s true.

Only if we’re talking about phones. My computer, work laptop, steamdeck, and my monitor all have audio out via 3.5mm jack.

I have a speaker set and a pair of headphones, and I can mix and match when and where I want to use them, which is great.

I hope removal of headphone jacks stays limited to phones (and reverses course eventually)

Other than the 3.5mm still being universal basically everywhere except for phones, it’s also universal in a purist physical sense.

Any old piece of scrap copper wire connected to a 3.5mm jack, wrapped vaguely into a coil, and placed next to something magnetic, should form a working speaker compatible with the 3.5mm jack. It won’t sound hi-fi, but it will work, because unlike Bluetooth or USB-C where you have to read hundreds of pages of standards and do a bunch of engineering just to figure out how to understand the signal, the signal in the 3.5mm jack basically is the sound.

This has direct practical implications as well: The transparent simplicity vs opaque complexity is why wired headphones can be so cheap and yet so reliable, or as hi-fi as your DAC and the speaker cone will allow, whereas Bluetooth devices are comparatively expensive, a mess to connect, fragile, bandwidth-limited, and environmentally and ethically dubious.

Bluetooth, and even USB-C, is basically black magic— Which wouldn’t be so bad, except that it’s also glitchy black magic. And this remains true regardless of device availability, because it’s determined by the physics of the technology itself is implemented.

TBH good sounding IEM/Headphones actually worth keeping for years today are almost all modular. IEM/Headphones worthy of playing from a jack will not sound great from a trash built-in one and will need extra AMP/DAC anyway.

Funnily enough, the best AMP/DACs you can get today all use bluetooth. They are even good after the battery dies since they are also wired DAC/AMPs. There are some where a battery change is also likely. IEMs have TWS converters as well.

It is all pretty convenient without a builtin jack, unless you are really running dry on cash and/or dont even care about the most important part which is audio quality.

…to plug headphones in. How is this a genuine question?

People still use their phones to listen to music and wireless earphones are almost universally garbage, require charging, and produce insane amounts of e-waste. Wired headphones don’t have these issues

Lol its a given that it would be used as an audio solution. I guess what im getting at is if you’re not an audiophile or have a specific need, most people don’t care about an aux Jack. Personally, I hate the feeling of a cable when I go out, shopping or for a run and I want to listen to a podcast or music. I strangely feel claustrophobic. And also, I feel wired headphones are far more disposable than wireless. Over the coarse of 6 years, I’ve only owned 2 different pairs of wireless buds. Before that I can recall countless mix of cheap and decent wired headphones. This is just me though, which is why I wantedbto,see the discussion for wider use cases for the average consumer.

USB-C dongles are notoriously prone to breaking and also are another bunch of silicon and plastic that contributes to e-waste pollution.

though truth be told, most phone 3.5mm outputs suck donkey balls because of massive output impedance and signal to noise ratio on sensitive headphones (of which most portable audio devices are) and companies should be ashamed of putting these hunks of shit in their phones.

Cars with wired input. More reliable than Bluetooth and not annoying when it connects when you don’t want to.

Fairphone do sell a type c to 3.5mm adapter you can use. Or just grab a cheap one off somewhere online.

I mean sure, if they were all the same standard or marked on the packaging as to which standard your phone uses, and what standard the adaptor uses would be easy.

I’ve lost the headphone jack since moving from my S10+ to a pixel 7 pro. The convenience is missed but not forgotten.

That would essentially be designing for the past. Agree many cars still have it but new cars have usb

You underestimate how old average cars in some countries are. 15 years old in Poland for example. They are from times where smartphones were barerly a thing. And thats average. Many are even older.

I do not.

Like I said though, these devs want to build for the next 20 year cars, they simply aren’t interested in 15 year old car connectivity. I’m not excusing them.

Also, you can get 3.5mm to USB cords for super cheap. Just use that instead of a 3.5mm to 3.5mm problem solved. We don’t need dedicated ports for everything.

(And before anyone say charging you can get 3.5mm and charging split connectors)

To have a convenient cheap set of earbuds that keep working, never need any charging nor can be lost.

You can find those everywhere for like 5€, if you don’t get them for free with certain devices.

I still have a couple laying around that have never been used.

I don’t get battery operated devices for things that don’t stray further than 1 meter from the device they are connected to.

Media playback is always 3 seconds delayed through Bluetooth for me, it’s annoying. Plus I like the wired headset I’ve used for 7 years.

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