Best Smartphones That Still Have a Headphone Jack
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I honestly can’t believe Apple did an iPhone event without introducing a new model in that size. I know at least a dozen people (especially women) who had been saying for at least a year that until the SE had a replacement, they’d be using one, or swapping to Android.
With the weakest offerings for iPhones yet, in terms of reason to upgrade - and intense consumer demand for such a product, I’m just starting to get sick of Apple not listening to what it’s userbase is asking for.
Shoving a limited number of options in our faces only works if the consumers actually want any of those options.
For a time, the ‘MacBook’ was lighter than the ‘MacBook Air’. For years, Apple’s flagship iOS phones wouldn’t even connect to their flagship MacBooks and MacBook pros without an additional cable or adapter.
They’ve killed the non Touch Bar MacBook Pro, while the industry laments the Touch Bar’s existence.
It’s one thing not to listen to your customers. Apple has always been a certain level of compromise (price, features) as compared to other options. It’s another thing to completely ignore industry and user base response. Reasons to make that compromise have run out for me, and are running out for others.
I have been an Apple-exclusive computer (especially laptop) user for 15 years. My next laptop will be a hackintoshed Lenovo.
> For years, Apple’s flagship iOS phones wouldn’t even connect to their flagship MacBooks and MacBook pros without an additional cable or adapter.
> My next laptop will be a hackintoshed Lenovo.
I really don't think you are Apple's target audience. Most iPhone users don't connect their phone to a computer anymore, especially the people that are buying flagship Macs and iPhones, and the few that do generally don't mind buying the extra cable. And most people with the skills and patience to tinker with their systems to make functional hackintoshes probably aren't big on buying services, which is what Apple is trying to transition into.
I am a creative professional - which, historically, was a very important part of Apple’s user base; and the reason I still use their products.
The ecosystem and workflow of using an iPhone or iPad to write a simple musical idea in GarageBand on the subway, and then finding it already on my iCloud on my MacBook Pro at home, so I can open it up in Logic and refine it, is unparalleled.
Anecdotally, I’ve never had anyone whom I’ve met, dev, creative, or casual user, who enjoys or uses the Touch Bar.
It’s not even just the touch bar. The keyboard, the soldered RAM and SSD which prevent upgrades, the lack of ports, when I spend more for a MacBook now, I’m getting far less than I did in my many years of purchasing them.
Furthermore, I could pull up a heap of references for this, but it’s a much more serious case with the SE form factor than even Apple’s current garbage laptop offerings.
There are practically a lot of people with smaller hands - they would be happy to give Apple their money but have nothing to give it for.
I'm 6'1" and think I have decent sized hands, I'd still prefer the 4S size if I could get it
All that said, historically sure, but creative and/or professionals are not the target of a mainstream phone meant to sell millions of phones.
I've given up dreaming and just deal with it as I still prefer iOS to Android
2) Do you use anything to customize the Touchbar to your liking? (I haven't used OS X in quite a while, and haven't heard of anything)
3) How's the rest of your keyboard doing? Do you like it?
2. I love BetterTouchTool – I use it at work and at home. Ambivalent towards the touch bar without it, LOVE the touch bar with it.
3. My mid-'16 personal Macbook has the "stuttering keyboard" issue – extra characters typed if not careful. I haven't been doing much side-work lately so I can ignore it, but it's a real pain in the ass for sure. Haven't had that issue on my 2018 work Macbook (yet).
https://community.folivora.ai/t/goldenchaos-btt-the-complete...
2) I don't, other than the customization you can do within macOS. I think the only thing that I've really done is remove the Siri shortcut from it.
3) Good so far. I have a 2018 model which has the silicon membrane under the keys and is supposed to be a bit more resilient. One benefit that this whole mess does have is when my battery deteriorates I can get a new one for free by using the keyboard replacement program. At this point if I didn't already have the MacBook I would wait for the next keyboard design to buy one, but personally have not had issues (yet). As far as the typing experience I find it good for short burst typing and the short key travel is generally fine with me, despite using mechanical keyboards elsewhere.
I am more surprised by the hatred for it. It's extremely easily hackable [0] [1] and I was thinking all sorts of people would up with interesting ideas and uses for it over time.
I was shocked at a second revision of the MBP without haptic feedback on the Touch Bar.
The keyword there is historically. It's pretty clear that Apple has shifted its market focus away from the creative space. It's made some efforts to win them back with the latest Mac Pro, but they are a minority.
This isn't even a criticism of Apple (clearly that decision is making money for them), it's just the reality of the situation.
Apple "only" sells 18M laptops a year. Software developers likely account for 1/4th (or more) of their MacBook sales.
Where, 15 years ago, I entered the software industry, Macs were virtually non existent in the workplace, I now use one - along with about 25 other people on my floor.
Poor longevity and rising prices and useless or missing features wont result in a slow decline in sales -- the momentum will keep carrying things until some tipping point when complete disconnection from the market makes things get ugly.
Developers and creatives were never the major customers of Apple gear, but in the mid-to late 2000s when things started to pick up they were great evangelists. I don't think it's a good look when those people are vocally saying they're going to switch.
Most people won't be making blogpost about how they're not interested in new phones when the one they have is still fine.
As an aside, I think people don't complain about the TouchBar because it's rarely used outside of the sound and brightness widgets. The majority of people aren't using escape or control keys like crazy, which could explain why mostly devs are in cries. There's no such split for using a phone, so when the iPhone SE is effectively dead and there's no gateway to a similar product, I expect the real wave of complain to rise up.
And although there are some options for better Windows experiences (WSL, Docker etc), I'm using Linux at home... laptop is an ageing late-2014 rmbp (though nvidia, so updates are borked) and stuck with Windows at work.
raises hand
Yup. I’m also locked in to Logic Pro and Final Cut Pro, with some projects literally a decade old.
‘The industry’ is not Apple’s customer. Apple knows who they want their customers to be, and it makes the products that it knows they want. I’m mostly expecting them to release a smaller iPhone. But for most of your complaints and the same old complaints that get posted in every Apple thread on HN, Apple doesn’t care about them, because HN commenters don’t represent what the market actually wants from Apple.
Without posting any reviews or customer data, you assume that there is a large customer demand for touch bar-equipped laptop computers.
The plural of anecdotes isn't data, but the complete absence of adecdotes of people who love the touch bar says a lot.
A lot of time companies make shitty products and then refuse to back down on it. Apple has done it in the past and this is just another example of it.
Not sure what effect the tariffs will have if they take effect in mid-December. Having a cheaper iPhone means less of a hit from tariffs. https://macdailynews.com/2019/08/29/apple-iphone-faces-15-u-...
This article calls the SE "tiny, aging, probably almost obsolete throwback", but I don't see what so bad about it? It works very well, IMHO.
I'd get a budget Android phone, but they're all freakin' huge.
I wasn't exaggerating when I said I have 9 apps installed: Couchsurfing, Fastmail, Telegram, Tinder, Revolut, Viewranger, WhatsApp, Google Maps, Firefox. That'll be €100/app!
Just to offer some counter-anecdotes, I've noticed a lot of women have the larger Max sized iPhone, since you get all the benefits of a big screen but it still fits fine in most purses. I carry my phone in my front pocket most of the time and the iPhone X/11 Pro size is perfect for that, I have no need to go down to the SE size. The only people I know using the SE are people who live in the Bay Area and work in tech who want to make a point of doing something contrarian and joining the tech backlash. And what better for this hipster crowd than discontinuing the phone altogether, so now you can only buy it used and having one becomes even more of a statement?
Dell and friends do much better job at reliability.
Maybe it's been luck, but every other iPhone I've had before this has needed at least one screen replacement.
I use Android phones, rather than iPhones, but regardless I can't remember the last time I actually plugged a phone into a computer. If I need to get files between my phone and my computer, I usually just put them on my Google Drive.
Apple's target has shifted from pro users to the general public.
People don't really appreciate the MacBook, they appreciate MacOs. If GNU/Linux had a comparable user experience, it'd win hands down.
And on that matter, I recently installed Ubuntu 18.04 lts and I've been surprised at how well it's working (and how much hardware it detected automatically).
Perhaps at the time, Apple had a bunch of old 5/5S-style hardware that they needed to get rid of, and so to liquidate it all, they created the "iPhone SE" as a low-end phone to get rid of all of those extra components in that form factor.
If so, the fact we all bought it because it was a small frame device is actually secondary to why it was created in the first place. If this motivation is true, it's also likely that if there is an SE2, it's going to be iPhone 7 or iPhone 8 in size and part selection with the better SoC, and you will be getting an A13-based, 4.7", Touch ID that looks indistinguishable from the iPhone 7 or iPhone 8 depending upon what bodies they have a lot of sitting around (or a lot of manufacturing capacity therein). I personally don't suspect a modernized 5/5S style phone from Apple the next time.
I would not buy a laptop with a Touch Bar if they paid me.
I'm still using a 2015 MacBook Pro—since it's the last laptop that has all the correct ports and working keyboard, but I'm looking forward to their next event when they should release a new version. If there is no normal keyboard that doesn't break and it doesn't have a non-Touch Bar version, I'll start looking into hackintoshes.
Besides on HN I never hear anyone wanting an SE.
I'm not really sure what people are paying for when they get those $800+ beasts for phones. When I use a friend's I can tell they are higher quality; either they feel more fancy or load apps more quickly. But it's marginal like the difference between a workstation and a gaming PC.
I think more people should try out budget Android lines. One really nice benefit is they only contain the technologies that have proved themselves. This article focuses on headphone jacks but there's quite a lot of silly phone tech that comes and goes in the name of marketing showmanship.
Edit: but the camera on g7 is apparently better.
It doesn't have the magical night shot mode that the pixels have, though.
No, I don't have a headphone jack (and yes, it is annoying) but it isn't the only tradeoff. (For example, being left handed, my palm triggers the back button on many android phones when I reach for something on the screen.)
I had used them in the past and even tried to take them into their third and fourth years, but they felt sluggish and had more and more app crashes as I fell behind the adoption curve. At their price point I'm absolutely expecting a 4+ year lifespan. I think Apple has a different vision though and is aiming a little more upmarket than where I am.
Latter stage CPUs in iOS devices hold up better than they tended to 5 years ago. I have an iPhone 8 in my house that gets used every day. Not a struggle.. I do remember when a 2 year old iPhone would feel crippingly slow around the time a new model was released. Not the experience these days.
That's because they don't have to. A lot of Apple customers don't even consider competing products. Apple could release a Macbook without a keyboard and there would still be a contingent of users willing to stick with it and explaining that you start to prefer it after a while. A lot of their decisions were good, or at least made sense in the long run (and were just introduced earlier than customers would have preferred,) but they're pretty much unaccountable at this point, I think.
The “trash can” Mac Pro would like a word...
“Recent”? Apple has been focused on privacy for quite awhile , they just didn’t make a big deal about it. Apple has had my personal information including my credit card on file for almost 29 years and I have never received marketing emails from 3rd parties nor has Apple suffered a hacker security breach.
That depends a lot. The sum total of every smartphone I've owned since 2012 (4 phones, ~$1100 Canadian before tax) is comparable to the cost of a single current generation iPhone.
There are a lot of people on hacker news (myself included) who hardly ever use their phone cameras and tend to forget that this is such a critical feature to so many people.
My personal reason for using flagship devices is simply because I use my phone an absurd amount. If you're using something for hours every day, marginal speed and quality of life improvements add up.
That said, it suits my uses absurdly well. I have no reason to replace it.
In any case, I have a lot of friends with phones much more expensive than mine. Their photos aren't that great.
With one exception: the software. I want updates as long as possible and I want no crapware, so I'm thinking a pure Android or something as close to it as possible.
I can see myself continuing with the Moto G Play series, if they don't mess them up. However, I won't replace them annually. I expect I'll similarly drag it out and skip a couple generations until lack of updates make me uncomfortable again, unless I drop it/break it first...
If I were willing to stay in the Android ecosystem, this is what I'd do. But I'm not (nor am I willing to go with iOS). It's just become too difficult, painful, and uncertain to secure them anymore.
Instead, when I need to replace my current (ancient) smartphone, I'm falling back to a feature phone combined with carrying a pocket computer that just runs plain old Linux.
Eg Shimano have a utility for updating the firmware on my bike (oh what a time to be alive...) they have software for doing that from Linux.
Keeping an old older iPhone around just to cover that is useful. Not sure what I’ll do when it dies or looses support.
Some games (Pokemon Masters for example) are simply unavailable because of this, and Google has already deprecated 32bit native code.
As a budget phone i can't recommend the range enough. Been some solid phone and never had any issues with them
The main reason for us is the camera. We do not own a separate standalone camera anymore. You're not going to be able to take a time machine to take better pictures of the past, which is also why we keep replacing our phones every year. Also I prefer Apple's walled garden especially for the less tech savvy members of my extended family. Tech support is much easier when you can point them to the Apple Store for one to one help and even free classes. Few people ever take into account Apple's physical stores when accounting for the price.
The next question then, is: how good of a camera does the average person need?
I'd fathom the vast majority of people viewing pictures are rapidly flipping through them on some app like Instagram. How much difference does the latest camera make for the average user, really?
FWIW I used Moto's for a couple of years and really like them. I used to get my wife's iphone for picture taking but now my pixel 2 is all I need.
High-end phone cameras are just really really nice, and they do tend to receive regular improvements that are noticeable to people who are interested in photography or just pay close attention. In 2006 I paid $325 for a Canon PowerShot SD870 IS that was pretty nice at the time, and almost any photo I took on that camera would look noticeably bad today compared to flagship smartphone cameras.
"Need" doesn't factor into it. People want the latest and greatest.
Also, nobody here seems to mention convenience- carrying around a smartphone is a great replacement for the calculator, watch (possibly with an integrated stopwatch, if you don't get anything too fancy,) walkie-talkie, stress toy, fidget spinner (there's an app for that), elephant, newspaper, or tabloid that might otherwise be on their person.
Utility!
I have a family and now time seems to be running much faster than before, and you can't buy back this time which is even more precious now. I want the very best device to preserve this time in amber, while being able to fit in my pocket and simple enough to quickly point and shoot in less than ideal situations and lighting.
It’s one of those things where better quality is never a bad thing. Eventually, it’ll get to the point where no further meaningful improvements can be derived from smartphone photography but we’re nowhere near that point today, even with the best smartphone cameras on the market.
One thing that often gets overlooked in pricing is depreciation. Flagship models tend to keep their value quite well, whereas budget models depreciate to next to nothing.
Take the iPhone X, launched 2 years ago, used it's around $570 today, versus the $999 it launched at.
Meanwhile, a $300 phone tends to drop down to $100 on the 2nd hand market two years later.
It just doesn't hold value very well, for one because budget phones become so much better, and secondly because there's no marketing or natural demand for 2 year old budget phones, and stores themselves discount 1st hand versions of these phones to extreme extents 2 years later. Who here is googling to get a good deal on a second-hand Moto G5? A $300 phone 2.5yo phone that's $50 used today, and $150 new.
So after depreciation, the difference between a $1000 flagship and a $300 budget model isn't $700, rather it's the cost of depreciation $430 vs $200 (or $230 more).
That $220 isn't nothing, but it's $9.50 a month on a 2-year basis. If you compare that to say a Netflix account, a data plan, cloud storage subscription, Spotify, or two Starbucks coffees a month... $9.50 a month extra to carry a flagship phone is pretty doable for most people. And you get a top-notch flagship phone.
Not saying everyone should skip budget phones, but it's not as painful a financial decision as it may seem.
Oh, shit.. I have "How to trick yourself into thinking overpriced prestige consumer goods are worth it: 101" with Mr. Conner. That guy is a pervert.
2. Browsing on Android remains secure e.g. Android 4.4 is still getting Chrome updates (I think Chrome is generally more secure than Safari anyway). iPhones become insecure to use when they stop getting updates because the browser is not updated.
Aside: the Android 9 security update feature is Project Treble. However apparently it doesn't make that much difference for many brands/networks because Google doesn't control the updates directly: https://www.computerworld.com/article/3306443/what-is-projec...
However, my Nokia has been getting security updates quickly enough for me. And I love dual SIM when travelling.
I didn't know: "starting with Android 10, a new initiative called “Project Mainline” will mean some of the plumbing inside Android can be updated directly via the Play Store."
Nice graph showing that Nokia is really good at updating their devices (and also shows how abysmal most Android manufacturers are at updating versions!). That said, I haven't got Android 10 yet (although I might get it since it is a Nokia and I am still within the 2 year upgrade window).
Let's say you drop your phone after 2 years of use.
If you got an iPhone X you need to spend around $300 on a screen replacement or sell if for $200.
If you got a 2 year old $300 phone you just buy a new for $300 (or do the replacement for $150.)
But anyway I really dont see a reason why someone would get a $500+ phone. I has better hardware (which most people wont make use of) and better design/bragging rights. What can do a $1000 phone better? A better camera (for most should not matter, instagram/facebook compresses your fancy images to shitty JPGs), a faster CPU/RAM (nowadays its barely noticeable unless you play stuff like Fortnite on your phone)
Is that true? If so, how do you know it to be true?
Actually this article mentions phones being lost or stolen - another 2 cases where a cheap phone comes out much better.
To get the best money for a second hand phone, you also need a good case (which is another sunken cost).
It can make sense, but pay attention to to other costs, because they add up.
I also do what the GP does: buy mid-range Android phones (Nokia at present, used to buy Moto), and give them to family and friends after a few years.
On topic: Nokia phones have a phone jack and have Android One (2 years version update, 3 years security, plus many more years of secure browsing).
This means the iPhone X still had more than twice the effective cost ($429) than the other phone ($200). So it depends on whether the user thinks that it’s more than twice as useful.
As someone with a painfully expensive phone, for me it was mostly down to the combination: 1) full radio support for us carriers (which also pulls along a decent chunk of europe gsm), 2) SD card support, 3) a headphone jack, 4) some level of waterproofing, 5) enough popularity that I expect to be able to root and install patches once it stops getting official patches. In that order.
That list narrowed me down to a very tiny selection of phones.
Edit: There are now many more options (and cheaper) than when I bought my phone. :sadface:
Anecdata as to whether it's really necessary to have a very good camera backed by powerful hard/software -- for me personally, camera quality became my #1 priority after having a baby, & exact same with everyone I know in similar position. But regardless of whether they have family or not, peeps seem to like being able to take good looking photos and videos, and the current manufacturer war over cameras means if you can afford to spend a bit more then the market is fantastic.
Edit: also, acquisition of powerful status symbols via a monthly fee that is only slightly higher than the monthly fee for less powerful status symbols.
Very high build quality considering the price even brand new.
I even bought a 2nd hand G5+ because I thought the G3 was about to die.. but it didn't. I wonder if the 4, 5, 6 .. are as sturdy.
It's not impossible to get by without one, but personally I don't have the soldering skills to replace a modern battery (parts are just a bit smaller than I trust myself with) so that's going to be a repair charge when my current phone's battery wears down in a year or so. No reason to replace the whole phone at that point, it still runs great and does everything I need it to do. Why waste the money?
The $9 lightning to 3.5mm dongle has worked perfectly for me, as has my USB-c to 3.5mm dongle.
Is this something people actually do in any situation except low-power emergencies?
One of my cars only has an AUX jack.
Remember, if you're not into conspicuous consumption, then you just aren't suited to be an Apple customer.
Of course, the problem with all this is when other phone makers ape Apple by copying some of these features, somehow thinking they'll gain the cultish customer base that Apple enjoys by doing so.
If you say that the battery is a little bigger because the internals of the phone didn't need to accommodate a headphone jack, does that make you feel any better? How often do you use not-your-regular-headphones (which would just have dongle on them permanently) vs using the battery down to the final 10%?
I've never seen a phone where the battery extended down to near the headphone jack.
If I put a dongle permanently on my headphones, how do I use them on another device that has a standard 3.5mm jack?
Thickness is only an issue for Apple fans. No one else actually cares if a device is 0.2mm thicker.
In any case, I fundamentally agree that it's not worth the tradeoff; I use an iPhone 5S and find it perfectly serviceable (and charmingly small and light). But some people do value those things, and/or only use wireless headphones or headphones with a single device.
[1]:https://strangeparts.com/bringing-back-the-iphone-headphone-...
Then Apple came out with a phone without a headphone jack and they just dropped the head phone jack from all of their worthwhile phones. I was a regular Sony buyer for years because of them being waterproof, but reluctantly had to switch last year to Samsung when my Sony phone was stolen.
That’s how you end up with Homer cars. Get rid of the legacy junk and streamline on useful features I say.
The iPhone 7 and newer are just designed like Eva from wall-e because "fuck compatibility, buy proprietary wireless to solve everything"
Legacy junk is the stuttering, disconnects, game audio latency and shit that bluetooth still is to this day. Analog audio has no such problems! Using bluetooth only makes the wire longer by using radio frequency but you spend more energy maintaining and error correcting this much worse connection.
Yes you could use lightning headphones but how cucked is that? Buying headphones specially for the port that only exists on your phone?
[0] https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2016/09/analog-last-defense-ag...
Honestly this article is pretty weak and relies entirely on speculation of what Apple might do in the future.
Since Bluetooth doesn't offer anything that I consider advantageous, those two faults mean that bluetooth earphones are seriously inferior to me.
Dongles are a nonstarter for me, for all of the obvious reasons.
No dongles, no Bluetooth, no wireless. Everything you ask for.
for the moment I'm going to try out using a bt receiver (just bought a fiio btr3 a few days ago) and when the battery goes i can just switch back to 3.5mm instead of having to wait half an hour for bt headphones to charge back up which is such a daft idea when you consider the price of them
However, I gave up on that fight years ago - I use AirPods (and BT in general) for my audio. Other than CarPlay (which is also lightning connector).
That's just like, your opinion, man. I don't know what I'm doing wrong, but bluetooth kind of sucks. If I have two devices that just stay paired together forever, it seems to work fine. But if there's ever any change, I usually have to spend 30-60 seconds fucking around and turning BT on and off, or re-pairing, or selecting output devices or something. Wired headphones are simple, don't need recharging, and they work when I want them to. So much like non-smart-light-bulbs, I do think sometimes 1990-style things are better. And I don't think I'd use the word "lug" to describe carrying something that weighs an ounce or less.
At the end of the day phones pretty much all do the exact same thing. There are little differences to form factor and different camera quality and all that.
But none of that will make any difference to your life for 90%+ of people. You don't need the best camera ever for your snapshots. And you don't need the fastest mobile processor to check your email.
I don't want to repeat that experience
Then there's the sheer inconvenience of carrying it around. I only have three things in my pockets: wallet, phone, keys. It takes less than a second to ensure that I have all three of those things on me. If I now have to dig past my wallet to the bottom of my pocket to make sure a little dongle is in there, that is dramatically worse.
I’ve been through the obsolescence of floppy disks, cassette tapes, optical media/drives, DB9 serial ports, parallel printer ports, composite video, RCA audio jacks, VGA and countless other display output jacks, yet this silly 3.5mm headphone jack is the one that’s turned people so ridiculously mad! So unbelievable.
Just based on iPhone sales it doesn’t look like many people actually care, but those who do, boy are they vocal about it. Why is this such a burning issue? Just use the adapter or invest in a decent pair of BT headphones and never worry about it again. It’s been probably 4 years since I’ve even used a device with a 3.5mm plug.
The difference is that those things had replacements available that were at least adequate.
Also, I've tried a wide variety of different bluetooth earphones on a variety of different smartphones. If the problem is just that I haven't found the right combination, then I'd say that is an argument against bluetooth for this purpose.
I shouldn't have to do a deep research dive just to find the combination that works. We're talking about listening to music here, not something tricky where a large research effort is justified.
I use a headphone jack for headphones because I'm an audio snob and it's much better audio quality with zero latency, I can use quality headphones, and I don't have to charge another thing. Bluetooth is a step backwards.
pros of headphone jack:
much better audio quality, zero latency, lighter headphones, one less thing to charge every day
cons of headphone jack:
a wire
For me it's no contest, and there's no reason we can't have both.
I definitely won't be buying a phone without a headphone jack, and the suggestion that I have to make that compromise is stupid.
Hmm... You mean how iPhone sales have platued in the 3 years since this change was introduced or do you mean how 2016, the year they got rid of the headphone jack, was the first year in the history of the iPhone where sales decreased? I am not really seeing your point. (These numbers are primarily due to changes in the broader market)
I have lived with no headphone jack and done the dance with Bluetooth dongles and wireless headphones. Even if you avoid the pairing issues, battery is consistently an issue. Making sure that the various dongles are charged when you need them is adding unnecesary cognitive load.
The 3.5 mm jack works - and it works well. I can connect audio devices together which were created a century apart. Heck, I use the same earphones in my phone, my computer, my TV, and my grandparents' record player. No software is required, no time is wasted "pairing". It just works. And I believe every piece of new tech should be held to the same standard - if it can't work as efficiently and as compatibly as a 3.5mm jack, take it back to the drawing board until it does.
>if it can't work as efficiently and as compatibly as a 3.5mm jack, take it back to the drawing board until it does.
100% agree.
The fact this is even a discussion makes me weep for humanity.
They still make CDs, and in fact they're the only way to get many albums in a lossless digital format with no DRM.
> RCA audio jacks
You must not own a nice stereo amplifier. These are still the norm.
> VGA
90% of the classrooms at the university I work at have projectors with VGA only input. While it doesn't matter to me personally, I can see why some people want their laptop to be able to connect to these "obsolete" cables.
> It’s been probably 4 years since I’ve even used a device with a 3.5mm plug.
Well, good for you? Just like CDs and RCA cables, the 3.5 mm jack still works great. In fact it's the best (in terms of quality and reliability) consumer audio connector we've ever had, and probably ever will have. It's more than understandable why people would complain about having to switch to something that isn't as good. Just because you don't care about these issues doesn't mean that other people shouldn't.
Except, everyday, when you need to charge them? And when you need to enable/disable the BT radio (unless you keep it always on but in that case the autonomy of the phone suffers).
I like my bone conduction BT headphones and use them almost everyday, but a passive "dumb" wired solution is very convenient and removing it is a strict downgrade. At a time when the new models don't really add a lot of value over the older ones this removal actually tips the balance to the wrong side. The improvements don't make up for it.
You can buy BT to 3.5mm adapters that charge with USB-C. Most of the time charge isn’t an issue so you get the benefits of wireless headphones but in a pinch you can charge the adapter off your phone.
Is it dumb to use BT for two devices physically plugged into one another — yes. Does it work for the few times it’s needed — absolutely!
there was no reason why phone manufacturers couldn't leave the headphone jack alone until Bluetooth was ready but it was mainly a money grab to force customers to buy their bt headphones
I want a really large screen as well. The Galaxy Note 10 has everything I want, except the damn headphone jack!!!
Wireless charging is also essential, because I've had too many worn out or damaged USB jacks.
All I want now is more than one USB input! That works as headphone jack anyway.
They'll have to pry the QWERTY keypad and headphone jack[1] from my cold, dead hands...or stop Android security updates.
[1] https://blackberrymobile.com/us/product/blackberry-key2/
with bluetooth it's not a great comparison since the only improvement is that you don't have to deal with annoying cables anymore but everything else is a step back:
they cost more. you have to charge them. the battery will degrade over time to a point where they will be unuseable while headphones from 20 years ago will work just fine. even if the battery lasts you might run into compatability issues at some point in the future (different bt versions etc). they drain more battery from your phone. they have connection issues. they are awkward to pair to new devices. you cant share your music with someone sitting next to you.
I use my Airpods on my android phone, and they're pretty nice for when I'm doing housework and working around the shop. When I'm at work, I plug in my plantronics headset for conference calls, and my regular cans when I'm listening to music. Airpods don't have the stamina to keep up with a long day of work, nor the sound quality I want - they are a compromise device.
I don't really care about this debate too much anymore, since it seems that a few good manufacturers are still clued in that this is an actual need that a lot of people have (I've been using a Moto G5, and now I'm using an S9). But it is odd to still pushing the claim that "everyone got over it" with regards to headphone jacks - I never got over it, and I continue to vote with my wallet.
If you find it such a hassle to use compatible headphones are carry an adapter, of course there's nothing wrong with you choosing for phone purchases accordingly. But I think it's pretty clear that most people either never run into the hassle at all, or aren't bothered by the fact that they need to choose compatible headphones or carry an adapter.
Phone memory is terrible these days, I have a huge collection of Mp3s and wav files I don't want to give up, despite bluetooth stuttering at times in my car.
Putting low onboard memory on modern phones should be a crime when USB sticks with 128GB plus are selling for $15... They do that to boost streaming and data charges... It's like car makers intentionally putting a smaller gas tank in a car if carmakers also owned the gas stations.
He want 128 GB for his MP3, it doesn't make sense he can't get it when USB stick of that size are that cheap.
> there is no reason to make a performance sacrifice like that in 2019.
> 64 GB: $1099
> 256 GB: $1249
> 512 GB: $1449
Cost is a reason, not having 40k images to load is another one. We clearly don't have the same sacrifice to do sadly.
Switched to a Pixel 3a XL after that, which is kind of disappointing since it's a very similar phone for a higher price (and without microSD unfortunately), but there really aren't a whole lot of options for headphone jacked phones these days, especially once you start adding in other requirements like good battery and stock Android.
"Nokia"/HMD have promise, it was mostly a great phone but with some significant issues, I'll be holding out on buying another of their phones until they've improved their quality control.
Which phone manufacturers make any money from streaming and data charges?
Samsung, when you pay for their cloud data storage
Honest question: how would you even approach the Android? My smartphone is basically a more mobile extension of my laptop: sending document snapshots directly from the phone's camera to my MacOS desktop, starting iMessage conversations with anyone with a phone number on a Mac and continuing on my phone, copy-pasting from my laptop into my phone, etc.
Android seems to be designed to run in "I'm an island" mode, i.e. the phone is one and only computer a user is supposed to use. I understand that my usage pattern isn't what manufacturers (and Google) are optimizing for, but what would be the closest approximation?
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=org.kde.kdecon...
Not at all, if anything it is more flexible, as it syncs cloud first, making what's on your phone accessible through a browser on any device, although with numerous sync programs available on the desktop as well. Scan docs into Google Drive (or dropbox) and the file appears in a synced folder on your laptop. Photos can drop straight into Google Photos. I use Android Messages on the web, can drop a chrome app to the Mac desktop if you want, it is seamless with the phone (and Hangouts still works too). I don't have any need for a shared clipboard, (maybe I use things like Google Keep for that?), but I know you can use pushbullet or the like.
What about communicating? I tend to avoid typing on my phone, and I heavily rely on the pattern of receiving SMS or iMessage messages on the phone and replying later when I get to my laptop or answering inbound calls on my laptop. These two would be the toughest to lose.
Basically, I loathe interacting with the phone if I have a laptop in front of me. An Android will probably constantly want my attention to answer texts and calls.
https://www.hidizs.net/products/dac-cable
It's tiny, so it just becomes part of the earphone cable.
I have the Sonata paired with some 30 GBP Chi-Fi earphones in my walking-around bag, and a Dragonfly Red paired with some 130 GBP Chi-Fi earphones in my cycling bag. The bike bag can afford to carry the bulkier equipment!
Now i just need to get a motorbike or something, so i can logically justify buying a Dragonfly Cobalt and some really nice earphones ...
Aren't these things standard yet?
I realized how silly it would've been to be unable to participate in those moments.
You were presented with a usecase where a wire provides a convienence that Bluetooth can't match. How can you just ignore that and say wires don't make sense?
Even aux ports aren't that common in cars, certainly less common than bluetooth in recent cars - a 3.5mm -> FM Transmitter adapter seems like it would be more universal.
Ugh. No way. Phones are pretty much the only devices that are letting go of their headphone jacks. A USB-C headphone is extremely limited in its use, and is guaranteed to cost more than one with a 3.5mm plug. How are you going to watch a movie on an airplane with your USB-C headphones?
Bluetooth headphones are just as bad. You can get a passable set of wired headphones for < $30. Good luck finding a pair of bluetooth headphones worth it in that price range.
When you push a key/knob, you want to hear the sound NOW, clearly.
One of iOS selling points is music production, otherwise, save the money???
For MIDI it works well enough most of the time. I think note-on/off messages are 3 or 4 bytes, though, which is quite a bit less of a chunk to buffer and verify or whatever Bluetooth does
[1]: http://www.music-software-development.com/midi-tutorial.html
[2] https://www.cs.cmu.edu/~music/cmsip/readings/davids-midi-spe...
Half byte for on/off header, half for channel, byte for the note/pitch, byte for the velocity.
This snippet probably xmits even faster at higher bps.
If you're a musician, you were probably also carrying around some 3.5 to quarter inch headphone adapters before this.
Outside of the headphone jack, I also really like the smaller size. Plus, I love people's reactions "how old is your phone!?" and then get surprised when I say I bought it new 6 months ago.
> "I love cars and things that go fast, and R and S are both letters used to denote sport cars that are really extra special," he said with a smile.
[1] https://www.engadget.com/2018/10/22/iphone-xr-phil-schiller-...
> LG has crafted the best-sounding headphone audio in any smartphone yet. The V30’s quad-DAC audio system is a legitimate technological advancement that delivers real joy
https://www.theverge.com/2017/10/16/16481024/lg-v30-headphon...
Unfortunately, it's the last Vx0 phone with the removable battery.
Oh god how i miss matte screens!
also limits the Alphabet co. reach - but I keep a tinfoil hat for extra protection.
I don't really mind so much most of the time, though, since my headphones were wireless anyway. I only really use the dongle if the headphones are low on battery.
It seems to me that some people got sloppy with the requirements analysis of their connector.
> It seems to me that some people got sloppy with the requirements analysis of their connector.
I guess I'd have to throw this back at you and ask if you know a lot of people who use 2 headphones on a single phone. Considering phones are largely personal items, I feel like that was probably a super small subset of the user base.
Ideally wished they would just include a replaceable lead like some do - but the Lidls ones work well, cheap and in recent sale - less than £5 - bargain and also fair quality.
Ok that's good. But do devices actually support it?
E.g. Bluetooth historically had flaky software support on Android, and sadly I can't even imagine that they'd get anything in that 5.0 spec correct that's outside the main usecase of single person listens to audio.
> and ask if you know a lot of people who use 2 headphones on a single phone
In e.g. the subway I often see people listening in pairs using a single headset. I think it's not a really strange feature to ask for.
> In e.g. the subway I often see people listening in pairs using a single headset. I think it's not a really strange feature to ask for.
So two pairs of headphones, or one pair of headphones and each using one either? Either way, you're going to need something custom (dongle or headphones) for that.
Edit: https://appleinsider.com/articles/19/06/11/how-to-share-your...
Lists like this are good, I want to maximize considering useful features (battery) while ignoring useless additions (1mm thinner!)
edit: i know people are saying its dragontail which is supposedly as strong as gorilla. well empirically speaking, i can say that is false; the same key scratches my pixel 3a easily but doesnt leave a mark on my pixel 2. take that for what its worth. ymmv.
I'm sure this applies to many phones (haven't tested specific ones) but the glass screen protectors refused to scratch for me, I tried screw driver tips, razors, as hard as I could against a flat desk.
If I applied enough concentrated force (or jabbed it) it would brake as expected, but anything short of that left a barely visible mark, if anything. I have seen them scratched, but it's not common.
I say throw a screen protector on it if you can and don't worry about it.
And I don't love the glass screen protectors, had one on my phone briefly and it seemed like it screwed up the image quality. Subtle, like a faint RGB shimmer over the whole thing. So now I've just got a thin plastic case and I try to not drop it.
We did have issues on the Galaxy phones with that edge though, we could never get the screen protector to stick properly.
As long as they don't, I'd much prefer we went back to the aluminum unibodies of the HTC M7-10 phones. They were gorgeous, in addition to being durable.
I debated switching to an HTC 10 at some point, but I had heard alot of anecdotal evidence about high failure rates for the phone after a couple years.
Again, it's a real shame. The HTC 10's chamfered aluminum looked gorgeous. I would pay for an identical-looking back on top of a phone with a bezel-less front and modern internals.
Literally the first phone on the list: "Pixel 3A and 3A XL" (by google).
iOS 13 (being released this week) will support the iPhone 6s, which was released four years ago.
Pray tell, what Android version is the iPhone SE running?
As for the rest of your comment, you can constructively recommend other devices, like the Nokia 2.2 that you're using, without the negative tone. Your first sentence is unnecessarily obtuse.
It's small, is usable as a phone and gps, and has a headphone jack (something I never thought I'd consider a feature...).
Why in the world would I change?
Wish the modem was better for international travel.
Humorously with respect to the article I do typically use Bluetooth headphones with it, except when flying as planes still have a headphone jack and I travel so light I won’t take two pairs.
I don’t have such issues on iOS 12 and my SE.
Of course “light usage” may be different between us...
In some markets it's called the Redmi K20 Pro.
If at least they had put in two lightning connectors - these are not nearly as durable and start failing now after 5 years. That and the battery would be the only reason for me to get a new phone.
[1] https://blackberrymobile.com/us/product/blackberry-key2/
If only there would be a flagship phone which has all: an awesome camera (I snap loads of photos, the whole "best camera is the one you have with yourself" mantra), big battery and a Micro SD slot, it would be an instant buy for me.
So far I've been upgrading my Samsung Galaxy from 2 -> 4 -> 8+ as that was the closest I could find to what I wanted from the phone, but I'm happy to change to any other brand.
Honestly, I'm very disappointed that Samsung also started stripping down its Note line. That's the phone that should have all the features--MicroSD, headphone jack, stylus, amazing camera, etc.
I'm in the same boat as you are. I've been going from Samsung phone to Samsung phone for ages now, but they've taken their "pro" line and started taking out "pro" features...just like Apple. :\
Honestly, I'd only recommend it to people who really value the camera.
For me: ease of use/configuration. I don't want Samsung bloat, I'd prefer to buy direct from manufacturer to avoid mobile carrier shit. I don't want to deal with rooting and have been happy with Google's smartphone offer since the Nexus line. I'd prefer wireless charging, not an overly large phone, and a fingerprint reader on the back, but after that I'm flexible.
Ah, I see -- then you should have asked that! For anything, what I recommend is not tightly correlated to what I would use myself, because the best solution is very context-dependent. In order to recommend something, I need to know what the requirements are.
In any case, I say that about the Pixel because the camera is really the only significant feature of the Pixels that comes close to justifying the asking price.
My existing (6 year old) smartphone only has another couple of years in it, though, so I've been giving a lot of thought about how to replace it. I've looked hard at the offerings on the market currently, and to be honest, there isn't a single one that appeals to me at all (there are a couple, such as the PinePhone, that look interesting but aren't in production yet).
I've spent a year developing a prototype of a home-built smartphone that does meet my needs, but I've recently decided against going that route at all. Instead, I'm just building a pocket computer (running plain old Linux) and will use a feature phone for my communication needs. Not having to use Android is hugely attractive to me.
those were effectively the two criteria: /e/ support, and a headphone jack (also 128GB of space and a price limit of $300)
the lg v35 and v40 are insanely good value right now, and the lg v50 is yet another sleeper flagship, high-end phone that does it all, aside from removable battery. however, unlike apple, lg offers a reasonable repair service directly with lg.
also, my lg v35 has the same water rating as the iPhone xs line and is thinner and lighter despite still retaining the audio jack and expandable storage.
- headphone jack
- no stupid notch
I love it and would strongly recommend it, it feels like the actual successor of the 5x
the real issue with dongles from my perspective is that they move the DAC out of the phone. manufacturers already tend to cut corners with onboard DACs, and they're likely to use even worse components in a $5 dongle.
in theory, usb-c could enable headphone manufacturers to move the DAC to the headphones themselves and use much better components than a mass market phone would. unfortunately I think the future is probably "good enough" but convenient wireless protocols.
I'm not sure the iPhone dongle is even a DAC. It seems like an analog pass-through, but I could be wrong. At any rate, after decades of playing music and producing numerous albums, I figure I'm as golden-eared as anyone, and I don't feel the sound is compromised.
https://www.kenrockwell.com/apple/lightning-adapter-audio-qu...
I'm still annoyed that I can't charge and use headphones at the same time (I have a different dongle with a charge port that I use on the plane), but other than that, it's not so bad. Still annoying that I had to pay $60 to use my phone the way I want to, but with so many phones dropping the headphone jack, I gave up trying to resist. (I'm still resisting moving to bluetooth headphones, I can never remember to keep them charged)
Dongles are available on Amazon for as low as a few dollars, but I couldn't tell which ones were good and which were junk, even the Google branded ones had reviews saying they were not legitimate Google branded, so I bought the $9 ones off Apple's website, which work fine on my Pixel.
https://www.amazon.com/s?k=B07GSZ124H&ref=is_s
It works ok, but charging is slow, it keeps my phone from discharging while watching a movie, but it barely charges (like it would if plugged directly into a USB cable)
Personally, I just stopped using my phone as an audio device. The only thing I listen to on it are videos, and I don't plug in headphones for that.
Fixed.