They lost me at no 3.5mm headphone jack. How can you say your phone covers the essential and leave out an essential port?
So you have people like me and a lot of people that never use that connection. And I guess a lot of people buy the phones based on the feeling when they catch them, and thinner phones feel better and people are more likely to buy them. Thus say bye to the 3.5mm connection and loss the hope for bigger batteries. Buy trends is what matters for business.
> Thus say bye to the 3.5mm connection and loss the hope for bigger batteries.
Sounds like a couple of great reasons to stop buying music to listen to on the phone, stop buying game apps, etc. And to stick with my current phone as long as possible.
I'd also lose a lot of the positive aspects of Airpods: I don't have any recent Apple devices that I use regularly, so I wouldn't get to take advantage of many of the auto-pairing features.
It’s fundamentally not essential anymore for many - even possibly most - users of new devices, especially when the other port can duplicate the functionality through the same DAC.
I know it’s a big change but honestly Bluetooth audio has got so much better - the newer more advanced codecs are basically CD quality sounds - and most decent new BT headphones are pretty high quality.
That said and though the audio quality is improving, they are still a pain to use between multiple devices, remember to keep charged, often uncomfortable to wear in bed/lying-down (usually have some battery bulk going on).
So I'm still glad my phone has a headphone jack for backup and times I just don't feel like faffing with the far from perfect bluetooth, like right now I just got out of bed, plugged my wired headphones into my phone and started listening to a podcast.
(Also, I understand that some of my issues will be solved when 'AirPod'-level headphones become more affordable).
The Beats X are solid little guys and sell for normal decent headphone prices. I’ve had no problem switching with those for example.
But I do see the advantage in paying more, then making use of the typically better warranty/guarantees to keep them going for years, rather than accepting breakage as I do now.
I'm still only prepared to pay that much if they really do solve the 'device switching problem' though, otherwise I'd rather stick with multiple pairs of budget bluetooth headphones (1 for gym, 1 for desktop machine) ...
Would be nice for stuff to get down to that price tho.
For the record - I haven’t had any issues switching devices with my Beats X