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Comment by jsheard | Hacker News Reader

The Zenfones mainly carved out a following because they're the smallest flagship-tier Android phones on the market. Asus has terrible support, but if you want a small-ish device there isn't a great deal of choice nowadays.

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Also, it's one of the rare remaining flagship-tier phone who still allows headphone jack, which is the main reason why I bought a Zenfone last year.

>they're the smallest flagship-tier Android phones

They're the same size as the Galaxy S series

https://phonesized.com/compare/#2261,2398

Does the Galaxy S series have headphone jacks as well?

No, but can't you use a USB-C earphone?

Not while charging.

USB C to 3.5mm Headphone and Charger Adapter, 2-in-1 USB Type C to Aux Jack Dongle Cable with PD 60W Fast Charging

$8.99

I like headphone jacks too but I’m not going to pretend that this isn’t a solved problem.

Yeah I bet that 9$ widget definitely won't induce audio quality issues while you pump 60W through it...

Let’s keep moving the goalposts…

Unless you own the product and know it has that problem I don’t know why you would invent it out of nowhere.

Can we also acknowledge that this is a general purpose smartphone and not an audiophile playback device? A ton of phones with headphone jacks had/have terrible DACs because they are general purpose devices designed to be good enough for the average person.

Someone who wants an audiophile playback device should buy an audiophile playback device.

People up-thread were talking about high end IEMs not general purpose devices.

They were connecting high end IEMs to consumer smartphone headphone jacks.

I bet it’s better to just have a product like this compared to a smartphone headphone jack with a run of the mill DAC:

https://www.fiio.com/ka3

yep! i've got a k5 kicking around on my desk, a proper dac is good stuff. they've still gotta make one we can cram 60W through though!

ed: i guess i should add that i just use a pair of bluetooth cans or even bone-conducting set when i am listening to stuff from my phone 'cause it's just podcasts and youtube videos

For some people, the ability to use wired headphones/earphones while charging has a lot of value. Additionally, some invest in quality earphones or IEM's and replacing those with the lower-quality limited selection of USB-C earphones is not desirable. Likewise with Bluetooth.

The 3.5mm audio connection is nowhere near dead yet.

FWIW for IEMs with detachable cables, which pretty much all of the good ones do, you can get replacement USB-C cables now. That has the advantage of decoupling the sound quality from the highly variable quality of the phones internal DAC since the DAC is instead part of the cable, and some of those cables even have configurable hardware DSP features. It doesn't solve the charging problem though.

That's more expensive and less convenient.

Indeed, today if you want a phone that isn't gigantic the options are really limited. Zenfone also had benefit of being quite sturdy since the back wasn't made from glass/metal, so you can go without a protective case. I have dropped mine a couple of times, but it hasn't suffered any damage until now.

You can go without protective shell, but it is so slippery you want one just to avoid airborne phones.

>The Zenfones mainly carved out a following because they're the smallest flagship-tier Android phones on the market.

They're literally the same dimensions as the basic Samsung S23, which was cheaper than the Zenfone as had better SW updates.

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