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Comment by mikece | Hacker News Reader

How many current phones have a headphone jack? When I upgraded from my Pixel 4a to the 6a (both running Graphene OS) I never noticed that the headphone jack was "missing" because I use a Bose bluetooth headset. And when I want to route the audio through my car speakers? Oh... I have a USB-C pigtail splitter which allows for power to be passed through another UBS-C port and connection to the car audio system through a 3.5mm TRS connector.

Seriously: who needs a headphone jack anymore?

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Anecdata, but I suspect my current issues with charging my iphone are due to wear on the charging port from using the lightning -> headphone adapter. When looking for a new phone I noticed that many sony phones still provide headphone jacks on their higher end models (xperia 5v, 10v) but generally it seems relegated to cheaper android phones.

I hate the waste generated from having battery powered headphones, and generally dislike the batterification of so many products these days. Wires can be messy but they are usually replaceable and I don't have to worry about properly disposing of them as much as I would for an item with a LiON battery.

IIRC the xperia phones are just as water/dustproof as the pixels/iphones so not really sure why we had to give up the port other than for maybe a mm of thinness and a reason to sell a new series of audio devices to consumers.

I used Xperia phones for years. However I gave up as if it doesn't come from t-mobile it didn't support all the towers (tmobile uses some weird frequencies in the US) and I'd end up in dead zones all over. Great phones, but too much friction to keep using them.

I wish it was easier to parse/compare the supported cell frequencies list from phone/gsm arena. Especially for devices more targeted at non US markets you can end up missing a lot of useful frequencies. I guess part of the issue is how non standard the US cell networks tend to be (iirc our 5g is also a little weird compared to the rest of the world)

It's one of the things I feel like iPhone does right supporting most frequencies even for US models. The new mandatory eSIM on it makes it a no-go for me though when I travel to Europe and want to buy a SIM card at the airport/corner store.

I.really want a works anywhere in the world phone that supports them all. I.travel once in a while and I want my phone to work (and reasonable roaming in every country)

I almost bought one recently because they are literally the only new phone model that has both of: a headphone jack and no camera cutout. Unfortunately, it seemed like support on google fi was hacky and partial at best (and it wasn't 100% clear you could get it to work at all).

I ended up going with the pixel 4, which was the newest phone I could fine that at least didn't have a camera cutout.

I have since discovered that in android developer options, you can choose to give up the screen real estate around teh cutout to effectively hide it. Given this, in the future, I'll look for phones that have a jack, worrying less about the cutout.

If the Fairphone ever comes to the US with full support, I would strongly consider it, even though I _really_ want a headphone jack. I think that for a fully repairable phone, I might be willing to trade.

It appears like my ideal phone is probably never going to exist again, so I'm going to have to compromise on something.

Looking at the GSM Arena Phone Finder [1], there's currently 494 cataloged phones released in 2023, and 286 of them have headphone jacks. I won't buy a phone without one, as I want to charge and listen to the movie I'm watching on a plane, and I'm not doing wireless headsets because I hate bluetooth and I hate unnecessary audio latency.

[1] https://www.gsmarena.com/search.php3

This feels misleading. As soon as you add a minimum price, there are 236 phones---implying those are probably prohibitively difficult to buy in the U.S. or West Europe.

Cursory browsing... There's Infinix (serves mostly Africa and Asia) and Tecno (popular in India) and a few other brands that are mainly released in Asia. Beyond that, can you really count all 14 "Redmi" as separate phones when some only differentiate "5G" or "not 5G"? Same with various "Fan" or "VIP" editions, which typically tweak one or two peripherals?

Are you really in the market for vivo, Realme, TCL, Oukitel? Or a specialist/rugged brand like Ulefone or Doogee?

Ironically, the most popular handset made outside of China for a worldwide market is the Galaxy A24, which has a horrendous single on-board speaker. So much for audiophilia! (In fairness, as soon as you restrict Chinese and Hong Kong headsets, you're down to just a few brands. Weird tangent, it's nice to see Nokia putting out spec-competitive mid-market Android phones. I might get one next because Asus and Sony are sticking with two OS upgrades.)

Then I fell into a rabbit hole and plotted the GSM Arena prices of phones with jacks and without: https://gitlab.com/PennRobotics/permalink/-/raw/main/handset...

From that, I can fathom that headphone jacks are largely bullshit features tacked on to devkit-derived bargain bin phones, which creates a huge peak in jacked sub-$150 units. From $300 up, where you expect good peripheral selection and a normal Android experience, it's clear that headphone jacks are in the minority.

I was in the same boat: gotta have headphone jack. The best player here was LG. Keyword: was. Now I'm convinced that until phone makers actually prioritize wired audio, the better path forward (and which won't be long-term obsolete) is picking the smartphone with the best overall specs/support plus a USB splitter and whichever grade of USB DAC you prefer to drive your headphones. It's easier for the manufacturer to waterproof their case and gives more room for battery, etc. This also lets you quickly transfer your preferred hardware to a tablet/laptop/desktop, which seems like a pain unless you're in love with something high-impedance like HD600, ATH-R70, DT990, etc.

I need a headphone jack. My car doesn't have an aux input (I have to use a cassette adapter), let alone Bluetooth. It's 20 years old, yes, but it's not that uncommon to have a car that old.

More importantly, even if I didn't need one I would still want one. A headphone jack is a universal connection for audio, Bluetooth is not. And wired headphones are strictly superior to wireless headphones, as they don't need to be charged and can't be lost as easily.

Couldn't you keep an adapter in your car?

Their are usb-c to jack adapter, some allowing usb-c passthrough for charging, otherr being full blown otg cable with usb-c, usb-a and TRS (the real name for jack). You would leave it attached on the cable that stay attached to your car and you would be fine.

Also, there are wired usb-c headphones, my partner is using one.

I'm also buying only a phones with audio jack.

But for car you can consider modern cassette adapter with Bluetooth and built-in mp3 flash player.

I'm in the same situation, but I just keep a USB-C to headphone adapter attached to the cassette adapter and I'm good to go.

Nobody needs a smartphone; a dumbphone would suffice for most people. We buy smartphones because we want them. For my personal use case I have an expensive pair of headphones which I used to use (lasted over a decade so far) with my Nexus 6P and while using an amp/DAC is better; it's just more convenient to plug and play.

Hard disagree. Not having some kind of device (be that a smart phone, tablet or laptop) is going to make life very difficult, particularly if you have to access any kind of government service in the developed world. Might be different in the US but in the UK almost everything is digital or moving to digital. For example if you're claiming benefits because you're unemployed in the UK then you would be expected to both apply online and log in to an online portal and register all your jobseeking activities which your job advisor will then review to determine if you're putting in enough effort. Failure to do this would result in your unemployment benefits being withdrawn. If you don't own your own device, the only other option would be to go down to the local library where you normally have to pay fees if you're using the computer over 30/60 mins depending on the local authority. If you're having to do this on a regular basis then it's far more economical to own your own device. This is just one example of many.

Of all the things which should be accessible without internet, government services should pretty much be number 1 on the list. Especially unemployment benefits, because how is someone without a job going to afford a device which can access the internet plus the corresponding internet access?

Yeah I completely agree but this is the current reality of modern day UK and I highly doubt it will change. If you don't have a device they literally expect you to go to the library or to the job centre to log your activity data. They may have some kind of device loaning scheme but I have no idea. The sad reality is that the majority of jobs only accept online applications now as well. Hence why I think we're now at the point where a smart phone is no longer a luxury and pretty much a necessity to navigate life in a developed country or at least the UK.

Don't know about you, but without Maps I'd be completely lost. Also, all gov services in my country (Estonia) require Smart ID, which requires a smartphone. So if I want to log into my bank account, sign documents, look at my medical records, do tax declarations, manage my business information, manage car parking, and so on and so on, I will need a smartphone. I suppose I could use the oldschool physical ID card and a ID card reader for my computer, but then I'd not be able to do anything on the go, and I'm certainly not going to carry a computer with me to be able to pay for car parking.

I'd say being able to live without a smartphone is only in third-world countries at this point, and less and less even there. In Argentina, everything from government services to booking a hair salon appointment to viewing restaurant menus is done via Whatsapp and QR codes, for example.

You could all have those in a tablet at home with android or ios for anything that you do at home.

I very much doubt you can't pay parking without a smartphone.

There are definitely some parkings where you can only pay with a smartphone. The worst is when they force you to download a shitty app. Super fun when the parking does not have good reception and you have to download an unnecessarily large app over 3G.

I've also been to random parking lots in the middle of nowhere with a cardboard sign saying "Venmo $5/hour at X".

What you've described are conveniences, which in essence was what my comment was about. A headphone jack is a convenience. It is inconvenient to use a dongle to convert from USB-C to 3.5mm, just as it is inconvenient to go down to your local government branch to change your address. You could do it, but you'd probably much rather just use your phone. You could ask the restaurant staff for a physical menu, but it's probably more convenient to scan the QR code.

I won't be able to pay in most parking places. There's no government office to show up at for that. I also don't think I can manage my business information in any offline way - the most manual form of that requires (electronically) signed forms to be sent via e-mail. So while I agree, some things you probably can do without, others in a 2023 Northern European society you really can't. If I wanted to live life with a dumbphone nowadays, I'd have to move to a less advanced part of the world.

Yours is the country that’s now vulnerable, not the "less developed third-world." No one should be depending on fragile insecure multiple-points of failure technology for 100% of life. You’re one invasion, terrorist/cyberattack, or solar flare away from armageddon.

Even just the power out for a few days after a storm and you’re done during that time. I can think of additional failure modes.

Who needs jack?

Anyone who has good wired headphones. Or issues with Bluetooth headset. Or need to have wired audio output together with wired charging.

I hope more phones will be available with audio jack.

> Seriously: who needs a headphone jack anymore?

People born before the year 2005 who don't throw away perfectly working electronics when a new shiny alternative comes around the corner.

> who needs a headphone jack anymore?

Anyone who wants to listen to music with headphones and doesn't want to be tracked via bluetooth. Bluetooth tracking beacons are used extensively and can log your location within a foot of where the beacon is placed or from as far as 20 miles away.

Bluetooth also increases your security risk. There have already been several exploits with bluetooth over the years.

but you can get an adapter, no?

Bluetooth's downsides:

* Pairing UX is unreliable and has corner cases that even Apple hasn't solved and they're probably the best case. 1/8" is predictable and reliable (and doesn't require extra thought / kit to make sure you can power at the same time).

* Battery life isn't an issue for wired headphones.

* Latency is unacceptable for some use cases (mostly specialized audio), and sometimes audio quality is degraded too.

I like wireless audio, (especially for workout listening) but I miss the headphone jack on my original iphone 5 SE at least once a week.

I do. And I don't even have to explain why an adapter is unpractical foe my applications.

Congrats you have a different use case to GP.

I can't instantly switch audio inputs to my phone with Bluetooth when I'm in an unfamiliar location. If there's a jack I can plug in and play music in seconds. If it's bluetooth... could be 30 seconds, could be 5-10 minutes before I can get the bluetooth working. Meanwhile the music is off. Maybe I just wanted to share one song, but I've possibly killed the party. Not even worth the risk. Headphone jacks are really excellent and just work. I've lost hours of my life troubleshooting Bluetooth.

I prefer wired headsets in general though I do have some bluetooth earbuds. I prefer my headset in the winter. And I'd prefer not to buy a new headset.

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