A couple hours before I was on the edge of getting a Fairphone 5 but I read the specifications and didn’t see 3.5 mm audio jack anywhere. So I thought to myself…why? The community has been requesting this for a couple years ago now so why not. They’re already making money on the phone, they’re really pushing for people to get their wireless headphones? Just add the headphone jack, shouldn’t be too hard.
They said they’re treating their workers fairly, sourcing from ethical sources, renewable claims, repairability claims, and supporting foss projects (they donated a fp4 to CalyxOS to support development). All of these are amazing, so adding a little headphone jack shouldn’t be that hard in the grand scheme of all this.
*Add the headphone jack and I’ll be happy to support and get a fp5.
They said they’re treating their workers fairly, sourcing from ethical sources, renewable claims, repairability claims, and supporting foss projects (they donated a fp4 to CalyxOS to support development). All of these are amazing, so adding a little headphone jack shouldn’t be that hard in the grand scheme of all this.
lol wtf
All of those things seem vastly more important than a headphone jack!
I’m not discounting their achievements but if they truly want eco friendly in mind then they would retain the headphone jack so people don’t have to buy adaptors or get new wireless headphones they didn’t want in the first place.
I guess? Seems incredibly minor lol
It would seem so, but it’s also arguable that by removing the port, you are forcing customers to buy wireless headphones that are much more harmful to the environment, something that goes against their motto of eco-friendliness.
I guess I care more about workers and fair trade, but that’s a fair point. Wired earbuds are just copper whereas wireless use lithium and whatever minerals Bluetooth requires.
Don’t mind the downvotes. Fair trade and eco-friendliness are both important, but sometimes you can’t get both. Gray area exists, and I don’t judge anyone who places one before another. Provided they understand both of course.
Wireless earphones/headphones are more expensive and sometimes inconvenient. People defending companies say “you can get a pair of wireless buds for like 20 dollars” you can, but how much are they going to last and how shitty will they feel and sound? Even when buying them for a high price, their batteries will wear out. The worst thing is adding this port doesn’t affect you in the slightest if you don’t use wired headphones, so couldn’t you just shut the fuck up if that’s the case?
One thing people don’t/forget to mention, is that the microphones in even earpods tier wired earphones will sound infinitely better than most mics in Bluetooth headphones, even in the multiple hundred dollar tier range.
Also, you won’t be forced to go into crappy mono sound mode when on call using Bluetooth headphones. When I use BT headphones with my laptop, I almost always use the integrated mic on the laptop instead of the built in ones in the headphone due to this.
That is just plain wrong. Phone calls are always mono. Also, audio quality via bluetooth can easily be as good as over wire, and many bt headphones have great microphones.
I know phone calls are always mono. The reason I mentioned laptop use is because I could also play other stuff in the background along with the phone call, and forcing the headphones into Bluetooth phone call mode makes the overall audio quality crappy. That’s why I use laptop integrated mics to keep the headphones in stereo mode.
There are arguments saying the headphone jack takes up too much space which could be made room for something else like a bigger battery and more components. To that I say to take a look at the iphone 6 or phones nowadays that still retain the headphone jack. Absolute disgrace that everybody has jumped off the cliff with Apple.
TLDR: Long rant about modern smart phones.
I’ve concluded that it is impossible to get a new phone that has the features I want. Some phone manufacturer always seems to arbitrarily declare useful features/form factors obsolete, maybe replaces it with some new gimmick and gets the hype machine going so all the other manufacturers do the same in fear of becoming irrelevant.
I just wish that some day some company is going to create a smart phone with a reliable fingerprint reader on the back again where it is reachable by fingers on BOTH the left and right hand. Or that some manufacturer will create a phone with a smaller screen than 6 inches. Or god forbid a normal aspect ratio like 16:9 instead of the ridiculously long lightsabers they’re making now. Then maybe it would be possible to get it out of my pocket while sitting down. Missing headphone jack is just a drop in the ocean IMO. There are so many other annoyances that I didn’t use to have, but now is an issue with modern smart phones.
If I got the chance to dictate what the manufacturers should do. I would tell them to stop. The camera is good enough. Make it smaller and not protruding out the back of the phone so much. The SOC is fast enough. Make it more power efficient instead of chasing for the next GHz. The screen is large enough, just stop. If I wanted a larger screen I would use a tablet. Do some damn QA. Test the main functionality of a phone, which is communication, not game benchmarks, not who can take the prettiest picture of the moon. Is it possible to take the phone out of the pocket without accidentally hanging up on whoever is calling you? Is it possible to send and receive to/from SMS/MMS groups? Does the fingerprint reader actually work or does it just say “sorry too many tries” every time you take the phone out of the pocket before even touching the fingerprint reader?
Just had to get that out of my system :P
It’s even wilder that they didn’t learn the lesson after fp4. Did people really just complain and then buy it anyway? How many phones can they sell that they can afford to piss off their customers like this? I just don’t understand how is the smartphone market so borked.
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It isn’t environmental good to change from a working phone to anything.
They keep saying that themselves, no one actually tries to sell you one if you have a phone already.
The most sustainable phone is the one you already have
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Hopefully by the time my s10e is ready for landfill companies will be making reasonably sized phones again. If I wanted a tablet I’d buy a fucking tablet.
The S23 is the same size.
There’s not such a thing like ethical consume under capitalism.
More and more people are saying it folks.
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This was a reason to not buy a phone 4 years ago. It’s a bit late to complain now.
No, the need is still present. Headphone jacks are pretty essential still, wireless tech is not a replacement.
I guess I worded it wrong. The time to protest was ages ago and it’s too late now to convince any of the tech corps to change so good luck finding a phone in 2023 with a headphone jack. We lost.
I’m not doubting you, just curious on the main use case
Wired headphones? What else?
I haven’t seen many people use wired headphones in a very long time, which was the impetus for my question
Because it’s so rarely an option.
Really? They’re much better audio quality than bluetooth.
Essential for what? Bluetooth used to be shit, but I’ve had very few issues with recent devices.
Bluetooth still lags. To this day. Don’t ask me why or how, given it’s the year of our lord 2023, but I can tell there is lag in most bluetooth headsets even in video content, let alone games.
So yeah, I have a Sony Xperia 1 IV, which not only has the headphone jack but forward facing stereo speakers and no notch or camera punch-hole. To my knowledge it’s the very last flagship phone with that specific feature set.
I may be wrong but if I remember correctly the reason it lags is that until the recent forced earbuds explosion the bluetooth protocol was focused on low energy efficient transmission for personal smart devices, and audio transmission was just an “extra” feature
Yeah, but “recent” here is a bit of a stretch. Apple removed the headphone jack from their phones seven years ago. Lagless bluetooth audio is only just now tehcnically possible and still widely unsupported. it’s absurd, and I honestly think it justifies not just seeking a phone with an audio jack but also moving on from the bluetooth standard altogether.
It still degrades audio quality and that’s an area I refuse to compromise on.
The smartphone is not the expensive part of my mobile audio playback setup, I expect it to be compatible with the standard playback interface of wires.
Get a Pixel and flash GrapheneOS on it.
I do
Wtf? You can use a $1 usb-c to audio jack dongle and use any headphones or headsets that you want. You don’t have to use Bluetooth.
the headphone jack community is like the vegans of smartphones
In the sense that vegans want vegan food available in vegan stores? Cause that’s the equivalent of wanting a headphone jack in a phone from a company that sells their products on all these promises.
It’s a “nice to have”, but I’d never rule out buying a phone for it.
My headphones (wired) cost more than a smartphone and I expect my handheld device to be compatible with them. I’ll rule out buying models based on this feature.
I used to be omniaural too, so I get where you’re coming from, but have you seen the whistleblower videos from the airpod factory? Sick.
Funny I always see carnists pushing themselves in the face of vegans once they know that the certain person is a vegan.
Just social polarization. For every obnoxious vegan trying to convert their peers you’ll have an obnoxious omnivore trying to annoy a vegan.
I wish lemmy had awards for this comment
Headphone jacks are not little. They take up a huge amount of board space on a device that people want to be small and light. They’re also fragile and they open up a big hole for crud to get in.
Every one of your points have been a solved problem for a while. We had small, light, durable, and even waterproof connectors before Apple called removing them “courage” (it was to sell more wireless headphones), and people with monetary incentives started to remove them, too.
You drank too much Apple koolaid
I’ve never had a headphone jack break and I’ve used the jacks on some of my devices almost daily for 10+ years.
I have had to replace several USB jacks in that time span though.
