Alternatively, if your current phone doesn't have a headphone jack, do you wish it did?
Why wouldn't you prefer a headphone jack in your phone? It is yet another option for headphones that worst case you don't use. The only reason it has been removed is because it saves companies a few cents on the cost to build the product.
They remove it to push people to use bluetooth, on iOS this means you wont disable it permanently and keep Apples tracking network alive. Not that nasty on Android but I suppose the same reasoning
I should have added, that for companies that sell Bluetooth headphones it also helps drive sales for those devices, particularly that is why Apple did it.
Yeah, Apple even bought Beats and immediately let the brand stagnate literally just so they wouldn't have any competition in the marketing space. That kind of move basically confirms that other moves they did likely had similar rationale.
It's possible that Apple is actually aiming towards their "portless phone" dream, and this death of the jack was just a step. But I'll take it for the "we must employ the closest practice to profiteering as we can in the wireless audio space" aspect it appears to have.
I am curious when they want to buy Bose, as they are pretty much the most common headphones people wear around me
Eh… I’m not sure it has anything to do with AirTags and the find my network. They weren’t a thing until a couple of years after the 3.5mm jack was removed. It’s probably a benefit now, but I suspect most people don’t bother turning off Bluetooth anyway.
Interesting, I always keep Bluetooth off unless I'm using my BT headphones. Saves battery. I never took privacy into consideration
For sure, but I don’t think the average non-technical person messes with that at all. Privacy is technically a concern with wifi and Bluetooth on because your phone basically acts as a beacon, but there are some mitigations in place to switch mac addresses and stuff fairly regularly.
Disabling things like Bluetooth and Wi-Fi has had a negligible affect on battery life for years
More importantly it removes the expectation to include earbuds with the phone as well as allows them to sell you Bluetooth ones
Let's be honest though, included earbuds were pretty universally garbage and the world is probably better off without the ewaste.
That said, please bring back the headphone jack.
One positive for me about the included earphones is they are great utility earphones for when I'm mixing/mastering music. They have a pretty flat and even response so it's one of the devices I use to test my music on "regular" sound systems to make sure they sound good on all types of equipment.
Mostly true, yeah. The "AKG" ones that came with my S8 were honestly pretty damn nice though.
AKG ones were always great. I have a USB C pair from an old Samsung and they're good too.
Yea I had a pair of those that I used for other phones, until I lost the pair.
I tried getting some "oem" ones from amazon but they weren't the same
I've always been lambasted for this opinion, but I feel the same way about the charging cable and charger.
I do not want yet another 1 metre (if they're even that, most likely 3 foot) USB-C cable that barely reaches from the charger on the floor to the bedside table - and largely precludes actually using the phone while in bed - nor particularly the included charger. So many things need to be plugged in these days that single-output chargers are also basically e-waste.
Of course because some business genius had the idea that making the USB cable 0.9 instead of 1.8m saved them $0.06 per unit shipped, we all got lumped with those useless cables.
Now of course there will always be people for whom it's their first phone (or whatever situation), who do need those accessories. But all that requires is there to be a retail bundle with the now-accessory charger and cable. Preferably that bundle costs the same as the phone with them included does today and you get a token discount for the phone without them, although we all know it would never work that way :(
This is the real reason. The cost savings is negligible. But as soon as Apple got rid of the headphone jack, they introduced the AirPods.
Then Google did it, Samsung did it, and every other phone manufacturer followed suit. They all have their own wireless earbuds.
Fairphone did it too, of all the companies. Shows that the margins on these things are pretty big for Fairphone to do such a thing.
It's why I'm getting a Zenfone to replace my ~6 year old phone now instead of a Fairphone. It even has a far better IP rating than the fairphone despite the "horrible" water intrusion supposedly caused by 3.5mm jacks.
Fairphones lying BS about why they removed the port convinced me to never buy one of their phones, even if I didn't care about it.
Sony listened to their customers complaints and brought back the headphone jack for the 2nd generation Xperia 1.
Their phones continue to feature some of the best waterproofing (real world performance, and not just the rating they slap on it) in the entire industry.
That has never been a justifiable argument against the headphone jack, despite being an all-too-frequent one.
I really doubt this is the primary reason. I think it was multifaceted, but really the people in the business of designing phones were already using Bluetooth exclusively and felt that it was good enough. Some designs probably rushed it as a means to sell more premium headsets (Apple, Samsung), other saw it as removing an unnecessary redundant feature that was more prone to breakage and a waterproofing difficulty (Google). I think it really just came down to the personal preferences of the (affluent) people who were doing the designing, not necessarily a purposeful cash grab. It really was not great since wired headphones were way cheaper than their Bluetooth counterparts. Luckily Bluetooth has gotten much better and less expensive. I think there should be options for both.
So many times I've forgotten my Bluetooth headphones or they've died and I always find some wired ones but can't use them, or I can even go into a gas station and just buy some for $1.
Also my Sony headphones have an optional aux port to plug in, nice to use when they die because it doesn't need battery, or if I want to plug into another device without having to pair everytime.
That sounds nifty, headphones that let you run BT and port as you choose? I didn't know this existed, will keep in mind!
Just another thing I don’t use that takes up space and can go wrong. Same reason i don’t need it to have a cassette deck or 8-track player.
Oh, cassettes were just designed to go wrong altogether 😆
But while wired headphones are indeed "analog devices" they do not have any mechanical parts moving, so really if you take good care of them they can last a lifetime. (Unlike BT headphones with batteries with approximate estimations of life). 🤒🤕
Why wouldn't you prefer a headphone jack in your phone?
I've seen some people literally say that they don't want a phone with a useless hole in it (in fact, it was said right here on Lemmy not long ago), whereas others claim that not having a headphone jack == bigger battery. Some, like Fairphone fanboys in particular, have gone as far as claiming that removing the headphone jack reduces e-waste...
Credit where it's due, Bluetooth headphones have come a long way. I like the ones I have now. That said, removing the jack and micro SD slots was extremely anti consumer and they should come back.
My issue with BT isn't quality it's the cost and the battery. I do have a very nice pair that I enjoy on occasion but I have another set of wired headphones that I use sometimes 12 hours a day at work. BT headphones would quickly wind up in the garbage under those circumstances since batteries are wear items with limited charge cycles and once they go bad, they render the rest of the device useless.
I also don't like having another device that needs charging or that'll leave me 'stranded' because I wasn't monitoring the charge close enough and it died.
I don't think we should be forced to choose one or the other. Both have advantages and we should get a real choice as consumers. Currently I'm limited to low spec'ed phones if I want 3.5mm or high spec'ed with no 3.5mm (and no SD card and no replaceable battery). It's a shitty choice all around.
Cheap knock off ear pods are getting a lot better. I can get a pair of 20 dollar ear pods that are actually better than name brand wireless ear buds I got a few years ago.
When it comes to audio quality they're better than the audio jack earbuds I have for my tablet and I don't have ti worry about pulling the cable. Also usbc ear buds never seem to break no matter how much they're pulled on or chewed on by the cat.
Yeah, I mostly use bluetooth with my phone but not always. Sometimes it's not possible and you just need to use an aux cable or wired headset.
Bluetooth headphones have come a long way
What advancements have been made since Apple removed the headphone jack?
nope, actually never used it. i've had and will continue having Bluetooth headphones
Once you get decent Bluetooth headphones it’s a game changer, especially since consoles are starting to support them
especially since consoles are starting to support them
Are they? I thought the BT lag made them not fit for gaming. That's the reason why Sony's Pulse 3D headset for PS5 uses wifi. I haven't tested any of this, I'm just repeating what I read.
There are low latency codecs available
I haven’t had any issue with latency on phone, multiple laptops, or switch.
This is the stated reason why Microsoft uses their proprietary wireless standard for Xbox controllers (which have Bluetooth, but not for the Xbox console itself) and headsets - but I haven't had latency issues using bluetooth headphones on my PC.
Now, I know that in a lot of cases, Bluetooth doesn't have the bandwidth necessary to do high quality bidrectional audio - so it can't receive and send audio (microphone) without falling back to a very low quality profile, which results in cruddy audio. Not sure if this is an issue that has been fixed though. If not, I can't imagine anyone would want to game and participate in voice chat using that as it sounds horrible.
Same here. I have a charger at home and work. If I travel, I bring a charger. I'm a responsible adult who knows when to charge Bluetooth headphones. I personally don't have a need for a 3.5mm jack.
Buuuut, I'll fight for fucking ever to keep them on phones. I should not be the only demographic on phone construction.
I use both.
Bluetooth can be convenient but also can be the opposite. On long travel days I don't want to have to worry about battery life, and I always inevitably run into issues with cutting in and out, which I find extremely annoying
I got one like that in 2018. Since then I had 2 phones, and I paid attention to make sure there is a headphone jack.
I feel you there. I had to get a new phone ASAP after breaking mine on vacation a few months ago. Didn't even think to check the specs because I was in a pinch and completely forgot some android manufacturers started dropping them since my last phone purchase.
Pretty much all Android manufacturers.. :(
Some manufacturer dropped them? I think at this time you can count on the fingers the smartphone models that still have a headphone jack. I miss it so much
I mean it makes sense, I could just vote 200 times with my VPN
I hate that I now have to use wireless earbuds that I now have to worry about charging, or that go flat at the most inopertune times....
Having something plugged into the usb-c port all day sounds like a recipe for a broken port.
That's what made me get bluetooth, I tried walking around with that dongle thing and I had to treat my phone as if it was made out of glass (wait, you know what I mean)
The headphone jack would be less painful of a loss if phone manufacturers started adding a second USB-C port on top of the device. That way you wouldn't have to choose between charging your phone, listening to your game without lag and in privacy, or carry a dongle to try doing both things at the same time.
I have corded USB type headphones. It's not a good replacement. The dac is in the connector which makes the portion that sticks out much larger; the port isn't designed for even mild leverage to be applied to it regularly. Go cycling with your phone in your pocket or even just sit down multiple times with your phone in your pocket while the usbc headphones are plugged in. They will either work their way loose or they will start to break the phone's port. I'm not even covering how the USB type c spec leaves a lot of room to be interpreted differently by companies, significantly increasing the probability of headphones working for only some phones.
Plus, the second usb port can serve as a backup if the main one breaks, and you can also connect more things like keyboards, mice, controllers
I'm all for the second USB-C, I feel like this is more likely to possibly happen compared to getting the headphone jack back, plus it would just be useful to have in general
It would be a very strange design approach to add an "backup" port. I think there are alreay gaming phones that have it?
But for the normal person this seems to be odd.
I would like that we can exchange those ports without removing the display... i had two phones that had broken usb c ports. A good thing we have wireless charging.
Fuck ya. All kinds of uses more then headphones to boot. Extra display, Keyboard, alternate charge port...
This poll kind of sucks for data gathering. You ask two different questions but there's only one set of answers. Even the first question alone asks if we use and/or require, which should be separate.
To answer though: I use my headphone adapter whenever I travel but don't have a regular headphone jack. A jack is not absolutely required for me to purchase a phone but the adapter is.
Yes. It's my way of voting with my wallet. I already have a few nice headphones and I'm not replacing them just because phone manufacturers are cheap and lazy.
Besides, I hate batteries. They always die at the most inconvenient time. And USB-c just for audio is way overkill.
Drag your preferred option to the top
wtf is this UX...
Yeah, I didn't see that and selected the wrong choice smh
I think it's supposed to be an option for ranked-choice or something.
I exclusively use wired earbuds because I fucking hate bluetooth as a technology
I just hate that I have to keep them charged all the time when I rarely use them. If I forget, the one time I do want to use them I can't.
Why hate? I get early on but it's pretty good these days imo.
It can be used to track your movements even without internet connection.
I hate to say but the poll is biased because you asked two questions that are not the same.
I currently have a phone without a jack, so the first question is obviously no. But the second question, would I prefer it, is a yes.
So there's a group of people who would prefer it, but it's not a deal breaker for them in your data, but they answered a different question than the headline.
Why isn't there an option for "the lack of a headphone jack is a complete deal breaker and I refuse to even consider a phone that doesn't have one?"
This. After my first Android phone I had only gotten Nexus phones. I had a Nexus 6p when the Pixel was announced, and it wasn't going to have a headphone jack. I tried multiple dongles with my Nexus 6p, and none of them both reliably worked with my headphones and fast charged my phone. My wife ordered a Pixel, I ordered a Note 9.
I've gone Note 9, then a One Plus Nord v10, and now an Asus ZenFone 9. Every time a manufacturer ditched the headphone jack (or made it only available at ludicrous price), I just switched manufacturers. I don't even use a headphone jack that often, but when I need it I want it to be there and just work.
Yes! No.1 reason: microphone quality! I have to attend many calls every day and no Bluetooth headset (BT v.4 > 5.3, SPS, AAC, LDAC) has even come close to the simple quality of a ~25,-€ wired headset.
I use both. I want both. Bluetooth and headphone jack. Is this too much to ask?
Nice bullshit poll making 'Yes' the pre-selected choice and clicking an other option not changing it, even when its highlighted. Dragging choices is absolutely counterintuitive and actively misleading. Lets start a poll if people like murder and wonder about the 50/50 result at the end.
Jesus it's just a simple poll with almost zero reach. Nobody is going to sneak into your house and install a headphone jack into your phone while you're sleeping.
Thats not my point. A poll usually serves the purpose to gather information. If you know from the start the outcome is completely useless, why even start it in the first place?
Unless... 😏
The level of paranoia in these comments is baffling
Holy shit that’s terrible Ux. I voted incorrectly. No wonder Yes had so many votes compared to the comments.
The poll setup isn't nearly as important as the fact that OP asked two completely different questions in the poll.
I'm not a fan of BT headphones. It's three things (2 pods and the case that charges them) that you have to juggle and keep charged, vs just one that works whenever the device it's plugged into works. Wired headphones have a nice additional perk of discouraging people from interacting with you, while (at least anecdotally) the BT ones seem to lose that deterrent... and the venn diagram for times I want to use headphones and the times I don't want to deal with other people is just one crisp circle.
I always try to pick out a phone that has a 3.5mm jack, but that's becoming increasingly hard to do.
I do prefer to use a headphone jack when my phone is the source of music for my amplified sound system and large room speakers.
Yes!
I do still use the headphone jack. Bluetooth is trash and suffers from extreme latency and is not capable of the same quality of a wired connection.
I recently bought some bluetooth earphones (sony wf-c500) after many years of avoiding it.
I was under the impression that things had improved but bluetooth is still as bad as I remember them. The audio latency on windows alone is unreal but another kettle of fish.
The real disgrace is that phone manufacturers removed the MicroSD card slot and then tried to justify it with weak excuses that didn't add up. MicroSD/SD cards have also recently become much quicker but nobody was using a MicroSD card as primary storage anyway so it was irrelevant and a weak argument at best.
The only reason why phone manufacturers did remove it was to charge you much more for the large storage capacity phones. I would also say the price increase for that given storage space was and is also vastly more expensive than it actually is. In other words it is a cash grab. Its also of no coincidence that many phone manufacturers also now sell their own shitty Bluetooth headphones.
We can also sight the absence of charging cables/cords and wall plugs/power bricks.
Not to mention that people these days are more privacy focused and tech savvy and begrudgingly use android or apple phones as they know with each update their privacy is being further eroded away. Whilst also being undermined by manufacturers with such things as planned obsolescence and them deliberately making it difficult if not impossible to repair your own phone.
...and phone manufacturers wonder why nobody wants to buy a phone anymore. Dumbasses!
The truth is there are many more number of reasons why phones are garbage these days.
It's a nice to have and frankly aside from maybe water resistance there's no good reason to remove it. The 3.5mm jack has worked since the dawn of portable music, doesn't require often fickle pairing, and of significant issue to me at least doesn't have the potential for some future DRM scheme when the media companies decide you have to use their special app to play something. It's much the same reason I resisted HDMI for as long as possible.
That said, I do use wireless and probabbly would routinely even if the current phone did have a jack, but I would very much like to have it there just for the option to plug a wire in and attach it wherever I feel like. Wouldn't be the first time an aux port or RCA adapter came in handy.
My current phone (Pixel 6) doesn't have a headphone jack, and I hate it because of that. I bought an adapter and it didn't work, turns out most phones with a Qualcomm SoC have a DAC so a passive adapter is fine... But the pixel has a non-qualcomm SoC which doesn't have a DAC connected to the USB-C port so I had to get a dongle with a DAC. They suck, and cost more than the passive dongles, and half of them sound like garbage with terrible QC.
Also dongles are easy to lose or break, since they are fragile.
My next phone has to have a headphone jack.
I don't actively need a headphone jack on my phone but when I do need one I am annoyed that my phone does not have one.
I usually use wireless headphones nowadays, but there are still plenty of instances where I'm happy to have the headphone jack. Random parties where someone needs to play music via the aux cable, going somewhere with only some small wired headphones in my pocket because I dont have space, etc. For me it's still quite important that my next phone has one.
The poll/voting process is flawed & I don't like that.
That said, idk, I'm a blue collar working adult & the aux/wired connection isn't a necessity in my daily life. I can often, if not always, blast my music on an Ion loudspeaker. Car has Bluetooth. Home, I've got Bluetooth.
But that's just not the point for me; my phone has an aux port & I rarely use it. Used it to connect headphones on a walk last week. It's nice & I like having the option. Getting rid of it was purely an anti-consumer move, so needless, and obviously they can build it into the phones without detracting from battery or taking away from water resistance. Everything I've heard justifying removing aux is either a lie or an excuse.
I mostly use bluetooth, but the jack of my phone is not sitting there unused. I have wired headphones too, and I frequently use my phone as a microphone (because it is one) by connecting it to my computer by a jack cable.
Also, the next headphone of mine will probably be wired. Always keeping it charged is not really a problem, but the privacy aspect of Bluetooth has started to disturb me.
With a wired connection, you exactly know and control who connects to your devices, and at the same time you don't announce to the world that you are here.
Also, as I understand you can't use USB-C for audio and charging or data transfer at the same time, or even all 3 at the same time. Is that right?
That is critical functionality for me. Audio is not just entertainment, it could be an online meeting or other things too, and at one point I'll have to change my phone, or transfer files from it. However I don't have a USB-C phone so I can't test it, so I would appreciate if someone could confirm if this is actually the case.
Man, fuck this straw poll website. VPN voting is not allowed? I’m not even on a VPN.
In answer to your question, OP: No, it’s not a requirement for me. I would much prefer if I had one, but it’s not that important for me, I don’t often listen to music from my phone, and when I do I’m in the car, so I just play it over Bluetooth.
No. I had jumped to BT long before Apple* first dropped the hole. I hate cords; I hate the tangle and snagging. It's another lever with which to break a connection on the circuit board, and another ingress for water.
I know audio is better over cords, but I don't hear the difference, so the convenience won for me.
I just discovered that my phone sometimes autocorrects "Apple" to "asshole." Fun.
I feel like if I ever become an audiophile, I'll probably be looking at getting a separate music player with a DAC, a Tidal subscription, and a pair of kickass wired headphones. But for now, I'm mostly listening to podcasts and for music I use Spotify for it's discovery features, and their audio quality is subpar already. Even if I had a headphone jack, I'm not really benefiting from superior sound quality but I am getting frustrated with tangled cords and getting caught on doorknobs. I'll take the convenience of Bluetooth, especially while working out. And Bluetooth standards have been getting better anyway, in a few years it might be on par with wired.
I've been dabbling with audio stuff and I just decided headphones are for mobility, a home speaker setup is for quality.
Holding that thought simplified a lot of purchases for me.
Some Bose qc35 are more.than good enough, given my use specifications.
I just discovered that my phone sometimes autocorrects "Apple" to "asshole." Fun.
I mean same difference, right? ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Yes and removable battery aswell.
Choosing a new phone has been rather easy, since about once every 5 years someone makes one model that loosely fits the criteria.
I use a headphone jack when I'm looking for a particular listening experience, which I have amp / DAC / etc for. If I'm using my phone to listen, I'm both not worried about sound quality, and don't want to be tethered to it by a cord.
I suppose if I were really arsed about it, I'd just get a USBC dongle. That said, I can see where that would be a hassle for people that prefer wired, and I think I've held only a couple of phones in my life that couldn't have just accommodated a headphone jack instead of saving the 1.5 cents it probably costs to leave it out.
I'll admit, my initial decision to just use wireless was more from seeing the writing on the wall; airpods sales would need to basically evaporate to get most of the manufacturers to course change at this point. Hell, the phone I'm currently using is the first I've had in years that even came with a charging brick in the box, so I'm assuming ditching the cable is next, followed by microtransactions to use various built in apps and services... like the phone dialer. Need to keep them margins infinitely expanding to appease shareholders.
Sorry, no VPN voting allowed
Yes. Yes yes.
I found an ideal solution for this (in my opinion). A Bluetooth DAC. The specific one I have is the FiiO BTR5, but there are others.
For mine specifically, it has the standard 3.5mm output (TRS), as well as a TRRS balanced connection (I believe it's 2.5mm), and it can receive a signal from either Bluetooth or over USB from is USB C port.
The best feature of it is that I can charge it, while I'm using it. Which is something that most all-in-one Bluetooth headphones miss entirely. Even if they can be worn while plugged into a charger, many don't operate while they're being charged. All the true wireless (aka airpod style) by headphones, can't even be plugged into power directly, nor would it be possible to use them while they're charging in their case.
I can pick any headphones I want to use with it, provided they can operate from a 3.5mm connection (or something that can be adapted to 3.5) or by a balanced headphone connection.... Basically any ear-mounted sound generating devices that use a wire, can be used with a few exceptions.
I'm naturally very cautious, so I also have a charging dongle that has a 3.5mm audio jack on it as a backup. It can literally charge my phone and play sound at the same time... I'm tethered to my phone, which IMO, isn't ideal. With the BTR5, I can thread the wire through my shirt or something, and clip the unit to me or stuff it in a pocket and not worry about it. If I need my phone, I'm not fighting with how long (or short) my headphone cable is. The BTR also supports LDAC as well as aptX and related codecs, so it generally sounds excellent. It's a bit of a bear to get it set up, so I generally pull it out for long walk/work sessions away from my desk, or if I'm in a situation where I'm waiting for something to happen for a long time. I also have a handful of Bluetooth headphones, all of which have their (dis) advantages, and I flip between what I have as the need arises. I prefer the BTR5, but it's not always the best or most feasible given the situation.
IMO the BTR5 is better than just having a headphone plug on my phone, since the DAC and AMP in the device is known-good (many reviewers of audio stuff give it great ratings all around), and I can be untethered from my phone, so typing/scrolling/whatever is the same as normal; I'm not having to position my hand funny to avoid a bulky cable/adapter.
I had benchmarks that led me to the BTR5, and between it and the dongle, I have all my benchmarks covered.
My current phone does not have a jack and my previous one did. I would prefer to have it since there are times I don't need/want noise cancelling and bluetooth, but I have no choice but to run down my headphone batteries more.
I use the same wired earbuds on my desktop PC and on the go, so yes.
Yes, I mostly use wireless earbuds but you never know when you have to use a wired earbuds like if you forget your case and your earbuds are out of charge.
Prefer headphone jack so I don't have to charge my headphones. Current phone doesn't have one and is sad.
Wireless are more convenient for most use cases. I like the compactness of wireless earbuds, no tangled wires, and the charging case. I can even use just one bud at a time.
However, wired headphones have some advantages in rare use cases that wireless can't handle yet:
connecting two headsets at once so 2 people han watch a movie on a plane. Bluetooth can stream sound to only one device at a time (at least on android). With Jack you can just use a splitter
switching between devices easily. Just unplug and plug where you want it. With Bluetooth you have disconnect and reconnect.
you can easily plug it into aux without any pairing process, just plug and play. With rental cars i noticed the device memory is often full and i have to remove a device before pairing. Not as seamless as audio jack for once off uses.
I don't mind missing audio jack, but at least make usb c dongles interchangeable. Iirc you can't use the same dongles on samsung and Pixel device. I ordered one that did not work.
Wireless are more convenient for most use cases.
Batteries are fun when they're the reason your $200 pair of headphones needs to be tossed out.
Dog chewed your headphones or left them on the plane/bus/taxi/bench/roof ? $200 is way more than $10 .
Tangled wires? That's like saying "I hate arms because they can't turn all the way around". And if your cables are still getting tangled, ask a millennial to show you how to not tangle them when you jam them in your pocket.
The thing about USB C dongles is that some contain their own DAC and others don't.
The former is already universal so what you're asking for exists but these are generally more expensive and the quality may not be as good as a pass through adapter if your phone has its own built-in.
On a different point about streaming to multiple devices, my phone (Realme) has a feature to use both the jack and Bluetooth headphones simultaneously which is great for the sharing use case without a splitter.
Would be great if it also supported multiple Bluetooth audio simultaneously.
I have excellent Bluetooth headphones that last multiple days on a single charge. You would think that makes the headphone jack just not important anymore. But I live in a neighborhood with a very satured frequency band which is so bad sometimes that the thing I'm listening to cuts out every few seconds.
Every time this happens I am so happy that I can just plug in a cable and I'm making sure this option will be available to me in future devices. Wireless is not always great.
I use wireless headphones for everything, I have a Bluetooth to aux adapter for my car, and I still won't give up my headphone jack. It's so useful when the batteries in those things die, or when you hop in a friend's car and want to play something without fiddling with Bluetooth pairing.
I'm still mad that all these major manufacturers just blindly followed Apple and took it out.
I don't get it. This poll is largely in favor of jacks. I love my Bluetooth buds so much more. No more with I have to deal with broken wires. No more do I have to deal with moving my hand and accidentally snagging the cord, forcing my phone to the floor. No more do I have to deal with the cord creating noise as it rubs against the zipper of my jacket...
good thing is phones already had bluetooth before they started removing the analog headphone jack
it isn't either or
When my headphones run out of battery, I switch to using the aux cord. The jack also allows me to play backing tracks through my guitar amp via the aux cord. I agree that wireless is superior for everyday use, but there are certain situations where I need the headphone jack.
I cant wear buds. They fall out all the time so I prefer my over ears which have wires.
I was gifted a phone without a headphone jack after my last one died a few years back. I miss it all the time, remembering to charge bluetooth headphones and not losing bluetooth buds is tricky for me. So a lot of the time I just dont play music anymore. Very annoying.
i wish it had a headphone jack. bluetooth quality is not for me. i need direct connection
Bluetooth has barely improved since it came out, wired audio is a solved problem.
It felt like a practical joke at first, but fr gimme my jack back.
I'm somewhat surprised by the result if I'm honest. I have switched to wireless and won't go back at all. I do understand the use case for those who want them too but I did not realise it was such a popular request in modern phones!
It sucks when headphones run out of battery, especially on a long trip
It's because the question is attracting mainly people who've already got a bee in their bonnet about headphone jacks.
Most people don't even think about it because they went Bluetooth years ago.
That and the Lemmy demographic. Lemmy and the fediverse currently attracts folks who have rather strong feelings about the technology they use, which I won’t knock so long as they don’t give me shit for hading being tethered to my phone by a wired headphone.
Agreed. The only time I use a wire is on Delta flights with seat back entertainment. I can’t stand wires, they drive me nuts. I’ve been using Bluetooth headphones since they came out and their flexibility is unmatched.
Running on a treadmill watching tv? Done.
Watching a TV 20’ away so the sound doesn’t wake my wife? Done.
Working at a Starbucks and being able to walk to the counter for an order? Done.
Automatic start/stop and device switching? Done.
Yes they runs on batteries, but so does the rest of my life. Keeping things charged has never been an issue. I have over the ears with 24+ hours of battery life and in-ears with 6 hours. I have never had an issue with them being dead.
One reason I can see for a jack, maybe, is for audiophiles who run high end setups. But even those I think use a DAC and not the jack.
I’m not saying people don’t want the jack, I just don’t understand it. 🤷♂️
I use a Samsung galaxy note 9 which has a Jack because i want a Jack. I replaced the screen twice after it broke just not to buy a diff phone. Fyi note 10 comes without a Jack
I feel like every comment I'm reading assumes there's only two options - either headphone jack + wired headphones, or no headphone jack + Bluetooth.
I just use a USB-C dongle with a headphone jack on it. It'd be nice to have it built-in, sure, but the dongle is only a few bucks, small, doesn't really add a lot of extra stuff to carry if I'm already carrying headphones.
It's not a deal-breaker for my if a phone doesn't have a headphone jack because if it doesn't I can easily add one.
Yes, it goes well with my bluetooth/wired headphones, so even if the headphone's battery is low, I can still use it to listen to music.
I hate Bluetooth and refuse to use it whenever possible.
One plus nord CE 2 lite, 250 bucks, headphone jack And memory card.
No. Not at all.
Honestly, I hated the wire part of my wired headphones for years. I tend to listen to things while I'm doing chores around the house and I can't tell you the amount of times the cable caught on something and sent my earbuds or my phone careening to the floor. Or was forced to untangle myself from a door knob. Or forgot I had earbuds on and stood up from my desk only to throw my phone to the ground.
I went on a bit of a journey with bt headphones but eventually got a pair of Sony Linkbuds and a $30 Bluetooth thingy for my car that plugs into the aux jack, and never looked back. Every other day I plug the case in on my nightstand along with my phone. Nbd. Linkbuds don't have the best sound quality I've ever experienced in BT buds, but the comfort wins over all others.
I also recently got a pair of PineBuds Pro for $70 and man that battery case is legit. I only have to charge that beast once a week. Just waiting on someone to release a better sound profile for those things because they are BAASSSY. But beyond the bass, the potential sound quality is actually quite good. I'm looking forward to what the pine64 community does with these.
I'll also say that I have audiophile hearing (I've been tested) and I absolutely hear the difference in sound quality using BT and a good set of cans - when it comes to earbuds, the difference is negligible between wired and wireless. Given that 1. I'm more often listening to words than music from my phone and 2. The convenience, I'll go for wireless more often than not if given the option. Plus, outside of niche phones and defunct LG phones, I never saw a headphone jack that could properly drive a good set of cans. There are way more output devices I would choose over a phone to drive high quality audio.
That all said, do I think manufacturers should remove the headphone jack? No. Apple did it to sell more airpods. Everyone else did it to save a nickle on their costs. Just because I don't use it doesn't mean it should go away. If anything, there's an accessibility element. BT buds are expensive. USB-C / Lightning buds are expensive. Aux buds are cheap. And wired buds are the easiest and cheapest way for someone to get audio out of a phone or talk on the phobe without fucking holding it in the air to broadcast their conversation to the world. And for that reason, I think the jack should ABSOLUTELY come back.
I have once owned wireless earbuds. It was cool to have free head, but I was too lazy to keep recharging them like every week or so. They finally died. Or at least the case did. I have replaced the charging chip in it, but it only extended the lifespan by a few weeks. It's now unable to charge both earbuds at once. Still, better than self-heating short-circuited case.
I just don't like them overall. Battery, latency, audio cuts after a bit of silence (power saving), and at the end, more waste.
I still use Bluetooth audio, but differently. With my laptop. When working on laptop, I have my earphones connected to it. But it is more convenient to play music on my phone, so I connect my phone to laptop for audio as well. In fact, I feel like the sound card in my laptop sounds a bit better than my phone, and with laptop I can use aptX HD.
It was cool to have free head
(͡•_ ͡• )
Since you mentioned sound cards, do you use one for gaming/audio production?
Phones that lack a headphone jack or a microSD slot are worthless to me.
I only buy phones with headphone jack. But the way things are going,these greedy manufacturers will sooner or later make it obsolete. Just like the new shitty trend of selling phone without charger in the box.
I've never had a need for the headphone jack, so I didn't care one way or another when they started dissappearing. But, I can definitely see how removing such a simple and cheap port from phones would be such an issue for a lot of people. No one should be forced into replacing accessories that work perfectly for no reason, just adds to all the damned e-waste already generated.
I ended up getting Bluetooth headphones when I upgraded my Pixel. I deliberated over it for AGES.
Charging them is less annoying than I thought it would be (I bought my headphones in January and have only had to charge them about 4 times??) but it annoys me that you can't just plug them in and they work. Talking to anyone on the phone using them is terrible. Bluetooth cuts out sometimes, randomly. I miss my wired headphones :(
I'm in the minority that basically never needs one and is okay with using a USB-C dongle in those cases. But I don't mind phones having one, and perfectly understand the argument for keeping it. Form over function is definitely a factor in modern phone design.
I'm fine with the dongle because all I ever use the headphone jack for is for listening in my car (no bluetooth), so the dongle just stays on the end of the aux cord in my car.
No dongle would obviously be better, but it's a very minor inconvenience for me,
I find in the car is the most inconvenient. Having the GPS open drains the battery pretty quick on my old phone, leaving no way to drive for hours with both music and navigation.
Had to sacrifice it to ne able to use grapheneos
Yes, it just works. I use it daily.
I use wireless headphones. However, I like to have non-distracting background music at work (open-plan office), and I won't put my personal files (music) on a company-owned laptop. So I run a wire from my phone's headphone jack to the laptop line-in, and can thus play music without any mixing of data.
I voted wrong. Didn’t realize you had to drag. Oh well. I’m indifferent. Haven’t used one for years, but there are a few times it would have been useful
oh i did the same and i didn't realize until i read your comment. that's some bad ui
It's only bad ui if it doesn't lead to the outcome the designer wants.
/s
I would have made the same mistake if they didn't hit me with "VPN voting not allowed". Not a very good first impression from this website...
My fold 4 doesn't have one, and it's a huge pain in the ass, since literally every other device I have has one. Even my 2021 car has one.
On a plane? Forgot my dongle at home. In a friend's car? It doesn't work, all they have is 3.5mm and then a lightning cord. Can't even use it at home with my noise cancelling or opened backed headphones.
It's the most annoying part of this device. It came bundled with the bad Samsung bluetooth earbuds, which helpfully developed a click in one of the earbuds less than one year into ownership. They retail for about $300, laughably.
I've managed to avoid giving up the headphone jack, using a Pixel 5a right now. Although when I eventually have to get my next phone I have a feeling there might not be many choices left with the headphone jack.
Yes.
I strongly prefer there to be a port. I mostly use Bluetooth headsets, but sometimes your battery runs out, or you really want to use your super nice plug-in noise canceling headphones. It's better to have the option.
My phone doesn't have a headphone jack but even before they started disappearing I rarely used them anyway, much prefer wireless
I'm of the probably unpopular opinion around here that the less cables and IO I need the better, will often transfer large files over lan on WiFi rather than plug in because often in the time I've found a cable, plugged in, set the right USB mode, found the file on my phone's filesystem and transferred it the slightly longer wireless transfer would be done
Have a ThinkPad which has a ton of IO, but I think a couple thunderbolt/PD ports, a usb port and maybe an ethernet port if you do lots of fiddling with networking are plenty
Oh micro SD on the inside of phones too someone else made a point about that but that's more an upgradability/maintainability thing imo
A lot of phones are still limited to USB 2.0 speeds anyway and wireless won't be all that much slower and could potentially be faster.
Not supporting microSD annoys me a lot too. Especially on some phones that still have a dual SIM slot but don't support microSD on one of them. It's not even space at that point.
I do totally agree with your wireless mentality, i do the same with my mouse, keyboard, xbox controller, etc.
However, when it comes to headphone audio, i will always prefer wired, mainly for the better audio quality.
But... i have tried various bluetooth headphones in the past, and while the audio quality is decent enough, but everything else falls apart:
Battery won't even last 3 hours, and the battery meter on the phone is always wrong, (and i really don't want to keep an eye on the battery of THE device that makes everyday life bearable).
The buds themselves are either uncomfortable or fall too easily.
I went farther than 3 meters? Too bad, connection lost!
This is entirely dependant on what kind of headphones you buy though, if you buy nice ones they work just as well as wired
My over-ear headphones last a day of constant use and have a hot swappable backup battery (they also have a receiver for my PC) and can go anywhere in my flat with them without it cutting out
Earbuds I've got last most of a day and have a charging case that lasts weeks, similar range to the over ear ones
Both of which are very good sound quality (though the over ear ones are better when using 2.4ghz rather than Bluetooth), the same or better better than wired ones I've had before of similar price
If you're looking for good wireless buds try jabra elite 65t, those are the ones I've been using though they're a few generations behind at this point
I've also heard the Samsung buds are quite good
Yes I need, I use more the jack headphones than my Bluetooth ones. If I had to buy a phone this feature would come into consideration, with a heavy weight
I simply cannot imagine buying a phone without a headphone jack. I want as few things as possible that I need to keep the battery life of into account in my day to day life. Phones and laptops at least have display symbols for the battery life by default, I have never seen anyone in my country using cordless headphones that had some sort of indicator for how much battery charge remains in them. If some are sold in the first world then they would be out of my expense, and if there are apps available that would solve my gripe I have not encountered them. I do own a pair of my own, but I only use it in very niche circumstances for which I will have known to have charged it right beforehand, and I am lending them to family/friends more often than I am using them.
Even supposing that the battery thing wasn't an issue, the other hassles involved with going cordless (I've had to help people find them one they fall out of their ears way too many times for one lifetime) forbid me from ever even thinking about buying a phone without a headphone jack.
Some have a simple led indicator so you know roughly when you need to charge.
red = low
orange = medium
green = full
Also when connected, they may show battery percentage on your phone. But the ones I had didn't really understand percentage.
100% = full
90% = half discharged
80% = consider recharging
70% = dead in a few minutes
As someone who currently uses headphones throughout pretty much all his free time, yes I use wired whenever possible and my current phone was one I got because of the headphone jack. Last thing I want is to have to stop listening to whatever I'm listening to all because my bluetooth headphones need a charge.
Currently I'm stuck with a pair of shitty dollar store headphones, but they are so much better than the wireless ones I have because of just how long I can enjoy music, videos, etcetera, without needing to worry when my headphone battery needs charged. A headphone jack is extremely important to me.
I would probably prefer having a headphone jack. I am using wireless buds though. The problem with them is the price. While you can get decent wired earbuds for around $100 or even slightly less you have to pay at least $300 for decent wireless ones. Seriously I tried a few, but they all sounded like absolute garbage. It's probably a cheap DAC in all of them combined with even less available space due to batteries and other electronics.
Another downside is that you can only use them for like 5 hours at a time. It is fine most of the time, but on long train rides I hit the limitation a few times.
Overall I am happy with the wireless ones, they are convenient, but it is really expensive to replace them and you have fewer choices, so having wired headsets as an option would be great.
I never tried wireless Bluetooth interfaces though and I suspect they might be better than the inbuilt jack of phones which would make them obsolete in my opinion.
My wired earbuds were top of the line Japanese imports with custom cables and a nice USB-C DAC as well. Sounds like sex feels.
No way I'll give up my headphone jack... Even though I kinda had to. I made a better one!
I use it, and would pick it over not having one for sure. It's not the end of the world for me. I can use wired head phones till the foam falls apart, and even then you can get new muffs, but bluetooth ones just die on me at some point and the pain of repair is pretty high compared to how much I care.
No, but I do use a VPN which that site doesn't allow.
Wish it did. My Airpods I was gifted died (I am not an Apple user and only used them because they were free), and I bought an inexpensive amazon replacement but it turns out they're so sensitive that the slightest adjustment of the earbud in my ear turns the sound off but very firm tapping does not turn it back on. It's so annoying and I have great wired headphones.
I don't even want one. I was initially mad that big comoanies have such power to decide what I want for me. People always say "let the market decide" but the decisions really do come from the top and are often cynical as fuck. But no, I don't really want one.
Even though it was annoying to me at first and I hate wireless earbuds, I realized I don't actually want to play audio with my phone. I have an mp3 player for songs, I have a laptop for video, one of those is always a better choice.
Interesting! I rarely see someone who has an mp3 player.
I too was upset when phone makers started to remove the headphone jack, but after having a couple of phones without one, I basically realized that I didn't use it very much and I don't miss having it. I use Bluetooth these days anyway. I mostly listen to music on my phone while walking anyway, so having a wire that barely went from my ears to my phone was a hassle anyway.
Definitely prefer a phone with a proper jack over one without. I know there's adapters, but that's taking up the only available slot, and I don't appreciate that at all.
I've been using my Bluetooth buds for a couple of moths now, and while loving them, I don't want to be limited to only Bluetooth for my audio, be for unfortunate cases when the buds don't work, or for something as simple as having a great wired pair at hand.
I have both options, but my wired earbuds definitely sound better. I've even found that I get better wifi range with the wired ones plugged in too. My phone only has USB-C now so I just keep the little USB-C to 3.5mm audio adapter attached to my headphone cord
I'd rather ditch the phone entirely than switch to one without a headphone jack. Too long to explain, but I have a thing against wireless, a thing against corporations making decisions for me, and a thing against phones in general.
Yes yes two thousand times yes, Why would I have to worry about charging one more device if a cable can deliver ten times the quality at the same price?
My car doesn't have Bluetooth but does have an aux jack. I use my headphone jack on my phone every day I drive
You can use a Bluetooth FM transmitter, some have very decent audio quality, like I used one from Xiaomi (Roidmi something something) and for me it was undistinguishable from regular BT audio
Normally i use bluetooth earphones, but sometimes i use normal headphones so yes.
I would prefer they did, but it isn't the most important thing about my phone. My current phone does not, and I really like it.
iPod Shuffle had only one jack - a combination headphone/charging/syncing jack. If you're only going to have one jack, why not that one?
I have a jack. I do use it on occasion. But man some of you really, really hate Bluetooth.
It's not THAT bad. Maybe your phones just have a really shitty transmitter/receiver? Sure, it's not as good as it can get with a jack.
But I also don't want to have wires hanging while running or biking. Being able to change volume and songs without picking up my phone from pocket is also very convenient.
I still want a jack in my phone. But I really don't get the extreme hate on Bluetooth. It's not 2005 anymore. Bluetooth technology has progressed.
Being able to change volume and songs without picking up my phone from pocket is also very convenient.
The big issue for me is that there is any disadvantage between generations. My current 5 year old flagship has a headphone jack, expandable storage, and support for Bluetooth 5.0 which is all that most devices need. The only new phones that still have all 3 are cheap budget phones that lack in other areas compared to the one I already have.
I felt the same way. I recently broke my LG V20 and had to "upgrade" to a newer phone, and nothing felt like it was actually better in terms of features than my phone from 7 years ago
Yea, that’s been the case for phone development for a while now. Advancements aren’t coming in tactile feature sets anymore. I remember when every new generation of phone had a cool new price of technology that changed how you interacted with the phone, it gave me a reason to upgrade every year, sometimes more.
Now I’m on an iPhone 12 Pro and I see zero functional difference between my near 3 year old phone and my partner’s 14. The only reason I’ll be upgrading to the 15 will be for USBC.
I'm still using mine because of that.
I miss it so much. I'm on a Fairphone 4 now, and while the newer version of Android is nice, there are so many things I wish I had back. The secondary screen on the top and the fingerprint reader on the back chief among them.
Damn, wasnt that one of the last phones to have an IR Blaster?
IR blaster, FM tuner, removable/replaceable battery (with lots of expanded 3rd party batteries available), secondary screen for checking notifications, hi-fi DAC, headphone jack, fingerprint reader in my preferred position (on the back), one of the first phones to use multiple camera lenses for different zoom levels. It was an incredibly feature-rich phone, which isn't a thing anymore sadly.
Sony WH-1000XM5 (which I use in both wired and Bluetooth modes)
Galaxy Fold 4
MacBook Air M1
These are all fairly recent devices, with the Sony one being the most recent headphones in it's series, running the latest firmware too, which was released last month.
Now here are my issues:
- Fold 4: When I get a call on Google Meet or Duo and I turn on my headphones, the audio doesn't work. I have to disconnect the call, close the app, and reconnect for it to work.
- MacBook: Similar thing happens with Microsoft Teams. In this case though, my headphones is already paired with my MacBook and connected, so I fire up Teams (from scratch) and dial in to a meeting. You'd expect it to work fine right, but the audio doesn't work, even though Teams detects my headphones as the output device. I have to turn my headphones off and on during the call (or reboot my MacBook) for it to work properly.
I can reproduce these issues consistently. I'm not a 100% sure if it's an issue with my Sony headphones, but the point is, all these products that I've listed are fairly recent and fairly expensive, and I deserve a better user experience. Bluetooth has indeed come a long way, and at least for me, audio quality isn't really an issue, but the fact that these sort of connectivity issues are still occurring on recent, premium devices, is unacceptable.
I don't hate bluetooth. I hate not having the headphone jack. Bluetooth headphones are nice but don't cover all use cases. It doesn't have to be a one or the other thing. Especially when they aren't adding anything additional on the phones that don't have a headphone jack. They're just cutting features. The phones aren't even cheaper for it.
I agree. I want a jack on my phone. I probably use Bluetooth 9/10 times. But that 1/10 I'm really glad I got a jack. It's fine if the phone has to be a little bit thicker to fit a jack... use the extra space for a larger battery while you're at it.
Not sure when I'll buy a new phone. Still using a Galaxy S10. But if it doesn't have a jack. I'm not interested. And give me access to a SD memory card too. Fuck internal storage.
I really like that bluetooth devices can still work at distances farther than a typical cable would allow. I have a decently-sized studio apartment and I can see my computer screen from most places. It's nice to continue watching a video as I move around the apartment to clean, get up to stretch, play with my cat, etc.
You could probably get wired headphones that long, but then you'd be dealing with that giant cable all the time. Or you'd have to constantly swap cables and interrupt the audio during that time. My AirPods work reliably from 15ft away. I can't argue with that convenience.
I live in a 3 bedroom 1000sqft house and walk around with my AirPods on between rooms no problem. I’d need a 100’+ cable to have that type of freedom with wired. Range is unparalleled between the two.
That said, this is a phone we’re talking about which is quite easy to bring with me between rooms, and even if I’d prefer to be charging my phone there’s a high likelihood I’d be going back to my desk shortly anyway since I predominantly use my AirPods while I’m working.
It's better than it was, but it still isn't great. I would rate Bluetooth as tolerable now, and sometimes frustrating depending on the devices being used.
Wired has a charm of simplicity that is unrivaled. Dependable, quick and easy to use.
I require a headphone jack because I require FM radio. I will die on this hill.
Until reading this question, I completely forgot head phone jacks used to be a thing in phones.
In love my first gen AirPods and JBL over the ear wireless headphones. The battery lasts forever, and they easily switch between my devices.
I love not having cords!
In my car I just connect with wireless CarPlay and charge wirelessly as well.
I want technology that's as uncomplicated as possible for accomplishing the task, so yes. Wired is better than wireless for anything meant to only work in proximity to something else.
Yes. Wireless never works. Bluetooth is proprietary bs
I like wired headphones but I have never really had any huge problems with wireless in this day and age.
Heck yeah, rocking the Sony Xperia with the headphone jack as a big selling point for me, alongside the lack of notch etc. I use it most days with my Apple ear buds coupled with wavelet auto eq. Genuinely sound great and subtle enough to feel comfortable with them in public. I have a pair of wh1000-xm3s In my bag but I go for them far less often.
You can also get 90 degree angled headphone plugs which don't stick out much at all. Mskes me less worried when i have my phone in my pocket and I'm walking around.
As for 90 degree usb-c headphone adapters... nowhere to be found.
Nice try, Samsung
I'd like one, sure.
It's not a deal breaker either way. I have a USB dongle with a headphone jack so it's not a big deal.
I absolutely want wired headphones, though. One less set of batteries to worry about, especially when traveling internationally.
I've used it a lot especially when console gaming and using my phone for Discord chat. So even tho I use BT earphones more often, it's useful to have.
USB dongles are unacceptable because I use magnetic cables, and USB ports are notoriously prone to breaking, making the whole phone useless.
Gimme a phone with 2 USB ports and I won't care about a headphone jack that much.
I need to have the audio in sync with the video so I need to have a headphone jack on all my devices
I use headphones every night to listen to audiobooks or YouTube videos until I fall asleep.
Yes. I use my headphone jack at least 3 times a week for 4 hours at a time went I'm on dialysis.
Plus for home listening I have a nice pair of over ear headphones which I run off a mobile DAC/AMP which connects to the phone via 3.5mm aux cable.
I won't buy a phone if it doesn't have a headphone jack. Hence my previous phone was an LG30 and my current is a Sony Xperia 10iii.
I once tried using Bluetooth in ear headphones at dialysis and the damn thing fell out of my ear and onto the floor. Had to leave it there for hours until I was unhooked from the machine. Thank goodness the cleaner never came to sweep otherwise it would be lost forever.
With wired this is not a problem, neither is forgetting to charge them since they don't need charging.
I can't stand Bluetooth headphones, the delay is unbearable. It's gotta be wired or 2.4ghz for me.
I just got a new phone that doesn't have it, and I very strongly miss it. I hate having to charge wireless devices. Everything that I can, I get wired.
Doesn't help much that lately it's been getting harder and harder to find good compact wired earphones, most companies pivoted to wireless... And of those that I find, most are the in-ear type with that rubber tip you squeeze deep into your ear... I also don't like that. Guess I'll have to move to over-ears for everything.
No, and I don't miss it at all.
I've used BT headphones even when my last two devices had jacks and wouldn't want to go back.
Prior to that, I can't count the number of times I would snag the wires on something or get them tangled in some way.
Now I use my BT bone conduction headphones everywhere.
Same, I switched to wireless before I lost the jack, for the same reasons.
My current phone has headphone jack and it is something that wikl weigh in on the future choice of another phone.
Wireless headphones are not a convinience for me.
I finally tried a little Bluetooth amp and found my wired earphones sound better than they ever did plugged into the phone directly. Couldn't hear an improvement when plugging into the usb port and using as a usb DAC. So i guess the high quality ldac codec must be kinda good.
Would still prefer the 3.5mm option of course - much more useful for aux out.
Have one, use it all the time.
Yes
I have too many pairs of headphones and have been buying more wired ones rather than Bluetooth as they just don't last as long (they are convenient, I'll admit).
The 3.5mm Jack is just so handy to have ratger than a dongle (SD card for storing all the music helps too).
I used to have the opposite issue. It was always the wire right near the jack that would wear out from having my phone in my pocket so my wired ear pods would always wear out in less than a year. Then I got a set of Bluetooth earbuds that had a wire between them. They lasted 2-3 years before the wire wore out. Now I’ve got a set of fully wireless buds and they’ve so far lasted longer than any other ones I’ve had.
I greatly prefer it. Basically all high quality headphones are wired only... and even an equivalent wireless headphone is more expensive and more stuff to carry (gotta carry those charging cases with them). Just give me my damn port.
As someone who currently uses headphones throughout pretty much all his free time, yes I use wired whenever possible and my current phone was one I got because of the headphone jack. Last thing I want is to have to stop listening to whatever I'm listening to all because my bluetooth headphones need a charge.
Currently I'm stuck with a pair of shitty dollar store headphones, but they are so much better than the wireless ones I have because of just how long I can enjoy music, videos, etcetera, without needing to worry when my headphone battery needs charged. A headphone jack is extremely important to me.
I won't buy a phone without it. Currently on a Pixel 5a 5g
I was annoyed when I found out the phone I was considering didn’t have a headphone jack, but after checking the prices of Bluetooth headphones, I wasn’t as concerned. The battery charge for the headphones lasted longer than I was expecting, too. Now I’ve grown to prefer them, and wouldn’t go back even if I had the option.
I much prefer wireless headphones, because I keep breaking every plug. I even tried soldering them, but that ended in a catastrophe lol. That being said, I recently lost my wireless pair and had to pick my old K450. Now I'm grateful that I picked a phone with a headphone jack. I wasn't even checking if it has one while buying.
I do not use mine, because if I want to listen to something in public, I just save it for later, when I'm home. Then I can play it at whatever volume I want.
Back when I went to the gym before covid, I had a dedicated music device I used for music, not my phone.
Yes, I would reconsider buying a phone that didn't have one. That said, I use a bluetooth speaker or bluetooth headphones.
It's preferred, but not a requirement. There are plenty of cheap usb-c to 3.5 headphone jack adapters available. My current phone has a headphone jack though.
No, i hate cables and if i really Need cable aux i have an usb-c to aux adpter.
I mean, why in the world with someone at all concerned about security want a way to listen to their phone without the chance of someone listening in because of bluetooth?
I missed it until I got AirPods. Now I got the pro ones and they’re amazing. I also use BT receivers if I want to plug to a stereo system or something like that.
I hate wires.
Username does not check out. :P
True...
I used to go through so many pairs of headphones because the wires would inevitably get caught on things and pull; at the gym, it was particularly bothersome. I have a pair of Audio Technicas with a wire that can be removed (and, incidentally, a Bluetooth option but the lag is awful) but that’s more for stationary use. Otherwise, wireless has been a miracle for me.
My current phone does not have a headphone jack but I wish it did. It seems to struggle with Bluetooth sometimes, dropping connections randomly.
My phone (Pixel 6) doesn't have one but I wish it did. I still use an aux cord to listen in my car or to plug into my amplifier when I practice on headphones, so I have to use 3.5mm to USB-C converter dongles. I also can't charge my phone while using an aux cable now which is annoying.
I like wired. They always connect to the device I want it to connect to the first time.
I use my audio jack in my car. The car has Bluetooth but only supports calls, no support for music.
Another point to make is that people here are saying wireless headphones are just as good as wired ones nowadays, but I don't think that applies to cheap ones.
Nowadays I very rarely use headphones with my phone out in public, so I don't see much purpose in spending money on a good pair for myself. I bought a cheap set of wireless ones awhile ago and they're terrible. They always struggle to connect to my phone and they have abysmal range, it struggles if my phone is sitting next to me rather than in my hands. I find any pair of cheap wired headphones you can get from any corner shop or supermarket is way cheaper and much more reliable than most cheap wireless ones.
My phone (Pixel 7) does not have one. On occasion I use a pair of wired USB-C headphones but only for media. I do not use headphones for calls. Bluetooth in the car for calls and YouTube Music.
Have only bought phones that have a headphone jack. Never ones that dont.
I'd like to have a headphone jack but I'm not that bothered either way. USB C dongles are cheap and I just leave it attached to my headphones.
That works unless u use the headphones for music production aswell then the dongle need constant replacing
yes
I want it and use it and therefore got a S10+ just bc it's Samsung last flagship that featured it. What's even more annoying, that my 10" tablet hasn't got one there is absolutely no shortage in space on that device why you had to drop it.
It would be nice if it did, but my newer Bluetooth headphones are a joy, so it doesn't matter most of the time.
Used it once to debug an audio problem, haven't used wired headphones since years
I have it but I have never used it. I've been using my Galaxy note 9 user since December 2018. I have active noice cancelling headphones for most scenarios and true wireless earphones for gym.
I used to be quite hardline on this, however now I use a portable DAP (Hiby R5 Gen 2) for my music. It has a class A amplifier, balanced output, a Terabyte of storage, and streams Qubuz Hi-Res. So I don't use my phone now.
It's pretty rare that I use wired headphones, I prefer them wireless.
I'm told that wired headphones have higher range audio support, but it's not like the music I stream from Spotify would support that anyways...
Man I can only dream of a new pixel having a headphone jack. And ain't no way I'm getting off grepheneos.
I use it daily, including right now.
Mine has one but even though I don't use it, it's good to have it for emergency situations when your bluetooth headphones are out of battery.
No, I really enjoy my shokz bone conduction headphones for general work calls, audiobooks, chores, running, etc. It's like I simply have the audio in my head.
They are Bluetooth and last all day, sometimes multiple if I'm not in meetings all day. They are waterproof, I can even swim with them.
Honestly running got me away from wired headphones the most
You ask three different questions here but expect only one response.
I don't care about the headphone jack. Bluetooth earbuds are super convenient, and when I want higher quality I plug in a Fiio BTR5 to the USB-C port and use that to power good headphones. Way better than a built in dac/amp would be.
Eh, don't care. If it has it nice enough but I have two great pairs of BT headphones and a USB-C pair.
Yes
My phone has a headphone jack and dual SIM cards but I would totally trade the jack for an SD Card slot.
Sometimes the second sim card slot can be used as an SD card slot, maybe yours can too?
I have had exclusively Bluetooth headphones for almost a decade at this point. I keep a backup pair of wired usb-c earbuds in my glove box in case I don't foresee needing my wireless buds.
Controversial take - sometimes you've just got to adapt to the times. I'll never forgive everyone for removing SD expansion in phones, because there's absolutely no replacement except "buy our expensive cloud storage and own nothing ever!" or "spend SIGNIFICANTLY MORE THAN THE ACTUAL COST OF FLASH STORAGE to increase your onboard storage!" which are both unacceptable. But wireless headphones are perfectly acceptable. If I want an audiophile experience, I'm absolutely not using my phone anyways.
I use bluetooth earbuds for work - I used wired buds up until this job, but I ended up constantly ripping them out of my ear by accident, UUUUGGGGHHHHHH. But I would still be using wired if I could. My husband also uses wireless earbuds at work, but needs a headphone jack to play music through his ancient work truck. He had an adapter while he had a phone w/o a jack, but then he couldn't charge his phone while listening to music. I know there are splitters out there, but we didn't end up buying one, and he just replaced his phone with a new one that includes a headphone jack.
I'm probably the odd one out, and I used to be infuriated by the idea that my phone didn't have a headphone jack, but I got used to not having it.
I only use wireless headphones now, and I have a USB-C adapter I can use in case I do want to use an aux port. Have been tempted to buy some decent "Chi-Fi" wired earphones, I do miss higher quality sound.
I wish my tablet had a headphone jack. I have to use an adapter but I would want one on there by default. I haaaaate bluetooth headphones. Too much delay. And no, I don't have a phone.
I use BT only.
Rarely. I do have a pair of Buds Live tho
I bought a used phone and needed good low light camera for documentation of network closets, so I had to compromise on the wish for a headphone jack. Now I got an adapter that I use at home to use my headphones for calls. On the go I have noise cancelling equipment that uses bluetooth anyway. It would still be more handy to have the jack built in.
Mine doesn't have a headphone jack but Xiaomi did provide a Type C to Headphone jack adapter in the box. It would have been better to have it embedded in the phone itself. But now, what happens is I don't use the phone while it's charging. So good enough for me.
Why wouldn't you prefer a headphone jack in your phone? It is yet another option for headphones that worst case you don't use. The only reason it has been removed is because it saves companies a few cents on the cost to build the product.
They remove it to push people to use bluetooth, on iOS this means you wont disable it permanently and keep Apples tracking network alive. Not that nasty on Android but I suppose the same reasoning
I should have added, that for companies that sell Bluetooth headphones it also helps drive sales for those devices, particularly that is why Apple did it.
Yeah, Apple even bought Beats and immediately let the brand stagnate literally just so they wouldn't have any competition in the marketing space. That kind of move basically confirms that other moves they did likely had similar rationale.
It's possible that Apple is actually aiming towards their "portless phone" dream, and this death of the jack was just a step. But I'll take it for the "we must employ the closest practice to profiteering as we can in the wireless audio space" aspect it appears to have.
I am curious when they want to buy Bose, as they are pretty much the most common headphones people wear around me
Eh… I’m not sure it has anything to do with AirTags and the find my network. They weren’t a thing until a couple of years after the 3.5mm jack was removed. It’s probably a benefit now, but I suspect most people don’t bother turning off Bluetooth anyway.
Interesting, I always keep Bluetooth off unless I'm using my BT headphones. Saves battery. I never took privacy into consideration
For sure, but I don’t think the average non-technical person messes with that at all. Privacy is technically a concern with wifi and Bluetooth on because your phone basically acts as a beacon, but there are some mitigations in place to switch mac addresses and stuff fairly regularly.
Disabling things like Bluetooth and Wi-Fi has had a negligible affect on battery life for years
More importantly it removes the expectation to include earbuds with the phone as well as allows them to sell you Bluetooth ones
Let's be honest though, included earbuds were pretty universally garbage and the world is probably better off without the ewaste.
That said, please bring back the headphone jack.
One positive for me about the included earphones is they are great utility earphones for when I'm mixing/mastering music. They have a pretty flat and even response so it's one of the devices I use to test my music on "regular" sound systems to make sure they sound good on all types of equipment.
Mostly true, yeah. The "AKG" ones that came with my S8 were honestly pretty damn nice though.
AKG ones were always great. I have a USB C pair from an old Samsung and they're good too.
Yea I had a pair of those that I used for other phones, until I lost the pair.
I tried getting some "oem" ones from amazon but they weren't the same
I've always been lambasted for this opinion, but I feel the same way about the charging cable and charger.
I do not want yet another 1 metre (if they're even that, most likely 3 foot) USB-C cable that barely reaches from the charger on the floor to the bedside table - and largely precludes actually using the phone while in bed - nor particularly the included charger. So many things need to be plugged in these days that single-output chargers are also basically e-waste.
Of course because some business genius had the idea that making the USB cable 0.9 instead of 1.8m saved them $0.06 per unit shipped, we all got lumped with those useless cables.
Now of course there will always be people for whom it's their first phone (or whatever situation), who do need those accessories. But all that requires is there to be a retail bundle with the now-accessory charger and cable. Preferably that bundle costs the same as the phone with them included does today and you get a token discount for the phone without them, although we all know it would never work that way :(
This is the real reason. The cost savings is negligible. But as soon as Apple got rid of the headphone jack, they introduced the AirPods.
Then Google did it, Samsung did it, and every other phone manufacturer followed suit. They all have their own wireless earbuds.
Fairphone did it too, of all the companies. Shows that the margins on these things are pretty big for Fairphone to do such a thing.
It's why I'm getting a Zenfone to replace my ~6 year old phone now instead of a Fairphone. It even has a far better IP rating than the fairphone despite the "horrible" water intrusion supposedly caused by 3.5mm jacks.
Fairphones lying BS about why they removed the port convinced me to never buy one of their phones, even if I didn't care about it.
Sony listened to their customers complaints and brought back the headphone jack for the 2nd generation Xperia 1.
Their phones continue to feature some of the best waterproofing (real world performance, and not just the rating they slap on it) in the entire industry.
That has never been a justifiable argument against the headphone jack, despite being an all-too-frequent one.
I really doubt this is the primary reason. I think it was multifaceted, but really the people in the business of designing phones were already using Bluetooth exclusively and felt that it was good enough. Some designs probably rushed it as a means to sell more premium headsets (Apple, Samsung), other saw it as removing an unnecessary redundant feature that was more prone to breakage and a waterproofing difficulty (Google). I think it really just came down to the personal preferences of the (affluent) people who were doing the designing, not necessarily a purposeful cash grab. It really was not great since wired headphones were way cheaper than their Bluetooth counterparts. Luckily Bluetooth has gotten much better and less expensive. I think there should be options for both.
Or they can include $20 wireless earbuds and say "Early preorder bonus earbuds, a $200 value if you ORDER NOW NOW NOW"
So many times I've forgotten my Bluetooth headphones or they've died and I always find some wired ones but can't use them, or I can even go into a gas station and just buy some for $1.
Also my Sony headphones have an optional aux port to plug in, nice to use when they die because it doesn't need battery, or if I want to plug into another device without having to pair everytime.
That sounds nifty, headphones that let you run BT and port as you choose? I didn't know this existed, will keep in mind!
These are the one I have https://www.sony.com/ug/electronics/headband-headphones/wh-ch700n
I had a pair of Sony headphones that could do the same thing!
Sadly, they were bad on both choices, BT's battery didin't last sh*t, and the wired input somehow reduced the volume (like, by a lot).
Just another thing I don’t use that takes up space and can go wrong. Same reason i don’t need it to have a cassette deck or 8-track player.
Oh, cassettes were just designed to go wrong altogether 😆
But while wired headphones are indeed "analog devices" they do not have any mechanical parts moving, so really if you take good care of them they can last a lifetime. (Unlike BT headphones with batteries with approximate estimations of life). 🤒🤕
I've seen some people literally say that they don't want a phone with a useless hole in it (in fact, it was said right here on Lemmy not long ago), whereas others claim that not having a headphone jack == bigger battery. Some, like Fairphone fanboys in particular, have gone as far as claiming that removing the headphone jack reduces e-waste...
Credit where it's due, Bluetooth headphones have come a long way. I like the ones I have now. That said, removing the jack and micro SD slots was extremely anti consumer and they should come back.
My issue with BT isn't quality it's the cost and the battery. I do have a very nice pair that I enjoy on occasion but I have another set of wired headphones that I use sometimes 12 hours a day at work. BT headphones would quickly wind up in the garbage under those circumstances since batteries are wear items with limited charge cycles and once they go bad, they render the rest of the device useless.
I also don't like having another device that needs charging or that'll leave me 'stranded' because I wasn't monitoring the charge close enough and it died.
I don't think we should be forced to choose one or the other. Both have advantages and we should get a real choice as consumers. Currently I'm limited to low spec'ed phones if I want 3.5mm or high spec'ed with no 3.5mm (and no SD card and no replaceable battery). It's a shitty choice all around.
Cheap knock off ear pods are getting a lot better. I can get a pair of 20 dollar ear pods that are actually better than name brand wireless ear buds I got a few years ago. When it comes to audio quality they're better than the audio jack earbuds I have for my tablet and I don't have ti worry about pulling the cable. Also usbc ear buds never seem to break no matter how much they're pulled on or chewed on by the cat.
Yeah, I mostly use bluetooth with my phone but not always. Sometimes it's not possible and you just need to use an aux cable or wired headset.
What advancements have been made since Apple removed the headphone jack?
nope, actually never used it. i've had and will continue having Bluetooth headphones
Once you get decent Bluetooth headphones it’s a game changer, especially since consoles are starting to support them
Are they? I thought the BT lag made them not fit for gaming. That's the reason why Sony's Pulse 3D headset for PS5 uses wifi. I haven't tested any of this, I'm just repeating what I read.
There are low latency codecs available
I haven’t had any issue with latency on phone, multiple laptops, or switch.
This is the stated reason why Microsoft uses their proprietary wireless standard for Xbox controllers (which have Bluetooth, but not for the Xbox console itself) and headsets - but I haven't had latency issues using bluetooth headphones on my PC.
Now, I know that in a lot of cases, Bluetooth doesn't have the bandwidth necessary to do high quality bidrectional audio - so it can't receive and send audio (microphone) without falling back to a very low quality profile, which results in cruddy audio. Not sure if this is an issue that has been fixed though. If not, I can't imagine anyone would want to game and participate in voice chat using that as it sounds horrible.
Maybe 10 years ago
Same here. I have a charger at home and work. If I travel, I bring a charger. I'm a responsible adult who knows when to charge Bluetooth headphones. I personally don't have a need for a 3.5mm jack.
Buuuut, I'll fight for fucking ever to keep them on phones. I should not be the only demographic on phone construction.
I use both.
Bluetooth can be convenient but also can be the opposite. On long travel days I don't want to have to worry about battery life, and I always inevitably run into issues with cutting in and out, which I find extremely annoying
This is my first phone without a headphone jack.
I miss it dearly.
I got one like that in 2018. Since then I had 2 phones, and I paid attention to make sure there is a headphone jack.
I feel you there. I had to get a new phone ASAP after breaking mine on vacation a few months ago. Didn't even think to check the specs because I was in a pinch and completely forgot some android manufacturers started dropping them since my last phone purchase.
Pretty much all Android manufacturers.. :(
Some manufacturer dropped them? I think at this time you can count on the fingers the smartphone models that still have a headphone jack. I miss it so much
"VPN user voting is not allowed"
Lol.
Guess I don't count
I mean it makes sense, I could just vote 200 times with my VPN
I hate that I now have to use wireless earbuds that I now have to worry about charging, or that go flat at the most inopertune times....
Having something plugged into the usb-c port all day sounds like a recipe for a broken port.
That's what made me get bluetooth, I tried walking around with that dongle thing and I had to treat my phone as if it was made out of glass (wait, you know what I mean)
The headphone jack would be less painful of a loss if phone manufacturers started adding a second USB-C port on top of the device. That way you wouldn't have to choose between charging your phone, listening to your game without lag and in privacy, or carry a dongle to try doing both things at the same time.
I have corded USB type headphones. It's not a good replacement. The dac is in the connector which makes the portion that sticks out much larger; the port isn't designed for even mild leverage to be applied to it regularly. Go cycling with your phone in your pocket or even just sit down multiple times with your phone in your pocket while the usbc headphones are plugged in. They will either work their way loose or they will start to break the phone's port. I'm not even covering how the USB type c spec leaves a lot of room to be interpreted differently by companies, significantly increasing the probability of headphones working for only some phones.
Plus, the second usb port can serve as a backup if the main one breaks, and you can also connect more things like keyboards, mice, controllers
I'm all for the second USB-C, I feel like this is more likely to possibly happen compared to getting the headphone jack back, plus it would just be useful to have in general
It would be a very strange design approach to add an "backup" port. I think there are alreay gaming phones that have it? But for the normal person this seems to be odd.
I would like that we can exchange those ports without removing the display... i had two phones that had broken usb c ports. A good thing we have wireless charging.
Fuck ya. All kinds of uses more then headphones to boot. Extra display, Keyboard, alternate charge port...
Yes, because fuck having to charge and monitor another battery and the way they are trying to push higher price and disposable device.
Nah, once I made the switch to Bluetooth 8 years ago or something. I have never gone back.
Actually I did once between Bluetooth headsets and the first time the cords got tangled I was like oh right that's why.
This poll kind of sucks for data gathering. You ask two different questions but there's only one set of answers. Even the first question alone asks if we use and/or require, which should be separate.
To answer though: I use my headphone adapter whenever I travel but don't have a regular headphone jack. A jack is not absolutely required for me to purchase a phone but the adapter is.
Yes. It's my way of voting with my wallet. I already have a few nice headphones and I'm not replacing them just because phone manufacturers are cheap and lazy.
Besides, I hate batteries. They always die at the most inconvenient time. And USB-c just for audio is way overkill.
Yeah, I didn't see that and selected the wrong choice smh
I think it's supposed to be an option for ranked-choice or something.
I exclusively use wired earbuds because I fucking hate bluetooth as a technology
I just hate that I have to keep them charged all the time when I rarely use them. If I forget, the one time I do want to use them I can't.
Why hate? I get early on but it's pretty good these days imo.
It can be used to track your movements even without internet connection.
I hate to say but the poll is biased because you asked two questions that are not the same.
I currently have a phone without a jack, so the first question is obviously no. But the second question, would I prefer it, is a yes.
So there's a group of people who would prefer it, but it's not a deal breaker for them in your data, but they answered a different question than the headline.
Why isn't there an option for "the lack of a headphone jack is a complete deal breaker and I refuse to even consider a phone that doesn't have one?"
This. After my first Android phone I had only gotten Nexus phones. I had a Nexus 6p when the Pixel was announced, and it wasn't going to have a headphone jack. I tried multiple dongles with my Nexus 6p, and none of them both reliably worked with my headphones and fast charged my phone. My wife ordered a Pixel, I ordered a Note 9.
I've gone Note 9, then a One Plus Nord v10, and now an Asus ZenFone 9. Every time a manufacturer ditched the headphone jack (or made it only available at ludicrous price), I just switched manufacturers. I don't even use a headphone jack that often, but when I need it I want it to be there and just work.
That's "yes" without being extra
That's honestly how I feel though
Yes! No.1 reason: microphone quality! I have to attend many calls every day and no Bluetooth headset (BT v.4 > 5.3, SPS, AAC, LDAC) has even come close to the simple quality of a ~25,-€ wired headset.
I use both. I want both. Bluetooth and headphone jack. Is this too much to ask?
Nice bullshit poll making 'Yes' the pre-selected choice and clicking an other option not changing it, even when its highlighted. Dragging choices is absolutely counterintuitive and actively misleading. Lets start a poll if people like murder and wonder about the 50/50 result at the end.
Jesus it's just a simple poll with almost zero reach. Nobody is going to sneak into your house and install a headphone jack into your phone while you're sleeping.
Thats not my point. A poll usually serves the purpose to gather information. If you know from the start the outcome is completely useless, why even start it in the first place?
Unless... 😏
The level of paranoia in these comments is baffling
Holy shit that’s terrible Ux. I voted incorrectly. No wonder Yes had so many votes compared to the comments.
The poll setup isn't nearly as important as the fact that OP asked two completely different questions in the poll.
Opted not to vote because:
Yes but this voting style is uhhh ... poop
I'm not a fan of BT headphones. It's three things (2 pods and the case that charges them) that you have to juggle and keep charged, vs just one that works whenever the device it's plugged into works. Wired headphones have a nice additional perk of discouraging people from interacting with you, while (at least anecdotally) the BT ones seem to lose that deterrent... and the venn diagram for times I want to use headphones and the times I don't want to deal with other people is just one crisp circle.
I always try to pick out a phone that has a 3.5mm jack, but that's becoming increasingly hard to do.
I do prefer to use a headphone jack when my phone is the source of music for my amplified sound system and large room speakers.
Bugger, how did I not think of that!
Yes! I do still use the headphone jack. Bluetooth is trash and suffers from extreme latency and is not capable of the same quality of a wired connection.
I recently bought some bluetooth earphones (sony wf-c500) after many years of avoiding it. I was under the impression that things had improved but bluetooth is still as bad as I remember them. The audio latency on windows alone is unreal but another kettle of fish.
The real disgrace is that phone manufacturers removed the MicroSD card slot and then tried to justify it with weak excuses that didn't add up. MicroSD/SD cards have also recently become much quicker but nobody was using a MicroSD card as primary storage anyway so it was irrelevant and a weak argument at best. The only reason why phone manufacturers did remove it was to charge you much more for the large storage capacity phones. I would also say the price increase for that given storage space was and is also vastly more expensive than it actually is. In other words it is a cash grab. Its also of no coincidence that many phone manufacturers also now sell their own shitty Bluetooth headphones.
We can also sight the absence of charging cables/cords and wall plugs/power bricks. Not to mention that people these days are more privacy focused and tech savvy and begrudgingly use android or apple phones as they know with each update their privacy is being further eroded away. Whilst also being undermined by manufacturers with such things as planned obsolescence and them deliberately making it difficult if not impossible to repair your own phone.
...and phone manufacturers wonder why nobody wants to buy a phone anymore. Dumbasses! The truth is there are many more number of reasons why phones are garbage these days.
It's a nice to have and frankly aside from maybe water resistance there's no good reason to remove it. The 3.5mm jack has worked since the dawn of portable music, doesn't require often fickle pairing, and of significant issue to me at least doesn't have the potential for some future DRM scheme when the media companies decide you have to use their special app to play something. It's much the same reason I resisted HDMI for as long as possible.
That said, I do use wireless and probabbly would routinely even if the current phone did have a jack, but I would very much like to have it there just for the option to plug a wire in and attach it wherever I feel like. Wouldn't be the first time an aux port or RCA adapter came in handy.
My current phone (Pixel 6) doesn't have a headphone jack, and I hate it because of that. I bought an adapter and it didn't work, turns out most phones with a Qualcomm SoC have a DAC so a passive adapter is fine... But the pixel has a non-qualcomm SoC which doesn't have a DAC connected to the USB-C port so I had to get a dongle with a DAC. They suck, and cost more than the passive dongles, and half of them sound like garbage with terrible QC.
Also dongles are easy to lose or break, since they are fragile.
My next phone has to have a headphone jack.
I don't actively need a headphone jack on my phone but when I do need one I am annoyed that my phone does not have one.
I usually use wireless headphones nowadays, but there are still plenty of instances where I'm happy to have the headphone jack. Random parties where someone needs to play music via the aux cable, going somewhere with only some small wired headphones in my pocket because I dont have space, etc. For me it's still quite important that my next phone has one.
The poll/voting process is flawed & I don't like that.
That said, idk, I'm a blue collar working adult & the aux/wired connection isn't a necessity in my daily life. I can often, if not always, blast my music on an Ion loudspeaker. Car has Bluetooth. Home, I've got Bluetooth.
But that's just not the point for me; my phone has an aux port & I rarely use it. Used it to connect headphones on a walk last week. It's nice & I like having the option. Getting rid of it was purely an anti-consumer move, so needless, and obviously they can build it into the phones without detracting from battery or taking away from water resistance. Everything I've heard justifying removing aux is either a lie or an excuse.
I mostly use bluetooth, but the jack of my phone is not sitting there unused. I have wired headphones too, and I frequently use my phone as a microphone (because it is one) by connecting it to my computer by a jack cable.
Also, the next headphone of mine will probably be wired. Always keeping it charged is not really a problem, but the privacy aspect of Bluetooth has started to disturb me.
With a wired connection, you exactly know and control who connects to your devices, and at the same time you don't announce to the world that you are here.
Also, as I understand you can't use USB-C for audio and charging or data transfer at the same time, or even all 3 at the same time. Is that right?
That is critical functionality for me. Audio is not just entertainment, it could be an online meeting or other things too, and at one point I'll have to change my phone, or transfer files from it. However I don't have a USB-C phone so I can't test it, so I would appreciate if someone could confirm if this is actually the case.
Man, fuck this straw poll website. VPN voting is not allowed? I’m not even on a VPN.
In answer to your question, OP: No, it’s not a requirement for me. I would much prefer if I had one, but it’s not that important for me, I don’t often listen to music from my phone, and when I do I’m in the car, so I just play it over Bluetooth.
No. I had jumped to BT long before Apple* first dropped the hole. I hate cords; I hate the tangle and snagging. It's another lever with which to break a connection on the circuit board, and another ingress for water.
I know audio is better over cords, but I don't hear the difference, so the convenience won for me.
I feel like if I ever become an audiophile, I'll probably be looking at getting a separate music player with a DAC, a Tidal subscription, and a pair of kickass wired headphones. But for now, I'm mostly listening to podcasts and for music I use Spotify for it's discovery features, and their audio quality is subpar already. Even if I had a headphone jack, I'm not really benefiting from superior sound quality but I am getting frustrated with tangled cords and getting caught on doorknobs. I'll take the convenience of Bluetooth, especially while working out. And Bluetooth standards have been getting better anyway, in a few years it might be on par with wired.
I've been dabbling with audio stuff and I just decided headphones are for mobility, a home speaker setup is for quality.
Holding that thought simplified a lot of purchases for me.
Some Bose qc35 are more.than good enough, given my use specifications.
I mean same difference, right? ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Yes and removable battery aswell.
Choosing a new phone has been rather easy, since about once every 5 years someone makes one model that loosely fits the criteria.
No headphone jack, no buy.
I use a headphone jack when I'm looking for a particular listening experience, which I have amp / DAC / etc for. If I'm using my phone to listen, I'm both not worried about sound quality, and don't want to be tethered to it by a cord.
I suppose if I were really arsed about it, I'd just get a USBC dongle. That said, I can see where that would be a hassle for people that prefer wired, and I think I've held only a couple of phones in my life that couldn't have just accommodated a headphone jack instead of saving the 1.5 cents it probably costs to leave it out.
I'll admit, my initial decision to just use wireless was more from seeing the writing on the wall; airpods sales would need to basically evaporate to get most of the manufacturers to course change at this point. Hell, the phone I'm currently using is the first I've had in years that even came with a charging brick in the box, so I'm assuming ditching the cable is next, followed by microtransactions to use various built in apps and services... like the phone dialer. Need to keep them margins infinitely expanding to appease shareholders.
Sorry, no VPN voting allowed
Yes. Yes yes.
I found an ideal solution for this (in my opinion). A Bluetooth DAC. The specific one I have is the FiiO BTR5, but there are others.
For mine specifically, it has the standard 3.5mm output (TRS), as well as a TRRS balanced connection (I believe it's 2.5mm), and it can receive a signal from either Bluetooth or over USB from is USB C port.
The best feature of it is that I can charge it, while I'm using it. Which is something that most all-in-one Bluetooth headphones miss entirely. Even if they can be worn while plugged into a charger, many don't operate while they're being charged. All the true wireless (aka airpod style) by headphones, can't even be plugged into power directly, nor would it be possible to use them while they're charging in their case.
I can pick any headphones I want to use with it, provided they can operate from a 3.5mm connection (or something that can be adapted to 3.5) or by a balanced headphone connection.... Basically any ear-mounted sound generating devices that use a wire, can be used with a few exceptions.
I'm naturally very cautious, so I also have a charging dongle that has a 3.5mm audio jack on it as a backup. It can literally charge my phone and play sound at the same time... I'm tethered to my phone, which IMO, isn't ideal. With the BTR5, I can thread the wire through my shirt or something, and clip the unit to me or stuff it in a pocket and not worry about it. If I need my phone, I'm not fighting with how long (or short) my headphone cable is. The BTR also supports LDAC as well as aptX and related codecs, so it generally sounds excellent. It's a bit of a bear to get it set up, so I generally pull it out for long walk/work sessions away from my desk, or if I'm in a situation where I'm waiting for something to happen for a long time. I also have a handful of Bluetooth headphones, all of which have their (dis) advantages, and I flip between what I have as the need arises. I prefer the BTR5, but it's not always the best or most feasible given the situation.
IMO the BTR5 is better than just having a headphone plug on my phone, since the DAC and AMP in the device is known-good (many reviewers of audio stuff give it great ratings all around), and I can be untethered from my phone, so typing/scrolling/whatever is the same as normal; I'm not having to position my hand funny to avoid a bulky cable/adapter.
I had benchmarks that led me to the BTR5, and between it and the dongle, I have all my benchmarks covered.
My current phone does not have a jack and my previous one did. I would prefer to have it since there are times I don't need/want noise cancelling and bluetooth, but I have no choice but to run down my headphone batteries more.
I use the same wired earbuds on my desktop PC and on the go, so yes.
Yes, I mostly use wireless earbuds but you never know when you have to use a wired earbuds like if you forget your case and your earbuds are out of charge.
Prefer headphone jack so I don't have to charge my headphones. Current phone doesn't have one and is sad.
Wireless are more convenient for most use cases. I like the compactness of wireless earbuds, no tangled wires, and the charging case. I can even use just one bud at a time.
However, wired headphones have some advantages in rare use cases that wireless can't handle yet:
connecting two headsets at once so 2 people han watch a movie on a plane. Bluetooth can stream sound to only one device at a time (at least on android). With Jack you can just use a splitter
switching between devices easily. Just unplug and plug where you want it. With Bluetooth you have disconnect and reconnect.
you can easily plug it into aux without any pairing process, just plug and play. With rental cars i noticed the device memory is often full and i have to remove a device before pairing. Not as seamless as audio jack for once off uses.
I don't mind missing audio jack, but at least make usb c dongles interchangeable. Iirc you can't use the same dongles on samsung and Pixel device. I ordered one that did not work.
Batteries are fun when they're the reason your $200 pair of headphones needs to be tossed out.
Dog chewed your headphones or left them on the plane/bus/taxi/bench/roof ? $200 is way more than $10 .
Tangled wires? That's like saying "I hate arms because they can't turn all the way around". And if your cables are still getting tangled, ask a millennial to show you how to not tangle them when you jam them in your pocket.
The thing about USB C dongles is that some contain their own DAC and others don't.
The former is already universal so what you're asking for exists but these are generally more expensive and the quality may not be as good as a pass through adapter if your phone has its own built-in.
On a different point about streaming to multiple devices, my phone (Realme) has a feature to use both the jack and Bluetooth headphones simultaneously which is great for the sharing use case without a splitter.
Would be great if it also supported multiple Bluetooth audio simultaneously.
I have excellent Bluetooth headphones that last multiple days on a single charge. You would think that makes the headphone jack just not important anymore. But I live in a neighborhood with a very satured frequency band which is so bad sometimes that the thing I'm listening to cuts out every few seconds.
Every time this happens I am so happy that I can just plug in a cable and I'm making sure this option will be available to me in future devices. Wireless is not always great.
I use wireless headphones for everything, I have a Bluetooth to aux adapter for my car, and I still won't give up my headphone jack. It's so useful when the batteries in those things die, or when you hop in a friend's car and want to play something without fiddling with Bluetooth pairing.
I'm still mad that all these major manufacturers just blindly followed Apple and took it out.
I don't get it. This poll is largely in favor of jacks. I love my Bluetooth buds so much more. No more with I have to deal with broken wires. No more do I have to deal with moving my hand and accidentally snagging the cord, forcing my phone to the floor. No more do I have to deal with the cord creating noise as it rubs against the zipper of my jacket...
good thing is phones already had bluetooth before they started removing the analog headphone jack
it isn't either or
When my headphones run out of battery, I switch to using the aux cord. The jack also allows me to play backing tracks through my guitar amp via the aux cord. I agree that wireless is superior for everyday use, but there are certain situations where I need the headphone jack.
I cant wear buds. They fall out all the time so I prefer my over ears which have wires.
Yeah but I don't want to buy new headphones when I've got good, expensive wired headphones already (which I don't need to recharge).
I was gifted a phone without a headphone jack after my last one died a few years back. I miss it all the time, remembering to charge bluetooth headphones and not losing bluetooth buds is tricky for me. So a lot of the time I just dont play music anymore. Very annoying.
i wish it had a headphone jack. bluetooth quality is not for me. i need direct connection
Bluetooth has barely improved since it came out, wired audio is a solved problem.
It felt like a practical joke at first, but fr gimme my jack back.
I'm somewhat surprised by the result if I'm honest. I have switched to wireless and won't go back at all. I do understand the use case for those who want them too but I did not realise it was such a popular request in modern phones!
It sucks when headphones run out of battery, especially on a long trip
It's because the question is attracting mainly people who've already got a bee in their bonnet about headphone jacks.
Most people don't even think about it because they went Bluetooth years ago.
That and the Lemmy demographic. Lemmy and the fediverse currently attracts folks who have rather strong feelings about the technology they use, which I won’t knock so long as they don’t give me shit for hading being tethered to my phone by a wired headphone.
Agreed. The only time I use a wire is on Delta flights with seat back entertainment. I can’t stand wires, they drive me nuts. I’ve been using Bluetooth headphones since they came out and their flexibility is unmatched.
Running on a treadmill watching tv? Done. Watching a TV 20’ away so the sound doesn’t wake my wife? Done. Working at a Starbucks and being able to walk to the counter for an order? Done. Automatic start/stop and device switching? Done.
Yes they runs on batteries, but so does the rest of my life. Keeping things charged has never been an issue. I have over the ears with 24+ hours of battery life and in-ears with 6 hours. I have never had an issue with them being dead.
One reason I can see for a jack, maybe, is for audiophiles who run high end setups. But even those I think use a DAC and not the jack.
I’m not saying people don’t want the jack, I just don’t understand it. 🤷♂️
I use a Samsung galaxy note 9 which has a Jack because i want a Jack. I replaced the screen twice after it broke just not to buy a diff phone. Fyi note 10 comes without a Jack
I feel like every comment I'm reading assumes there's only two options - either headphone jack + wired headphones, or no headphone jack + Bluetooth.
I just use a USB-C dongle with a headphone jack on it. It'd be nice to have it built-in, sure, but the dongle is only a few bucks, small, doesn't really add a lot of extra stuff to carry if I'm already carrying headphones.
It's not a deal-breaker for my if a phone doesn't have a headphone jack because if it doesn't I can easily add one.
Yes, it goes well with my bluetooth/wired headphones, so even if the headphone's battery is low, I can still use it to listen to music.
I hate Bluetooth and refuse to use it whenever possible.
One plus nord CE 2 lite, 250 bucks, headphone jack And memory card.
No. Not at all.
Honestly, I hated the wire part of my wired headphones for years. I tend to listen to things while I'm doing chores around the house and I can't tell you the amount of times the cable caught on something and sent my earbuds or my phone careening to the floor. Or was forced to untangle myself from a door knob. Or forgot I had earbuds on and stood up from my desk only to throw my phone to the ground.
I went on a bit of a journey with bt headphones but eventually got a pair of Sony Linkbuds and a $30 Bluetooth thingy for my car that plugs into the aux jack, and never looked back. Every other day I plug the case in on my nightstand along with my phone. Nbd. Linkbuds don't have the best sound quality I've ever experienced in BT buds, but the comfort wins over all others.
I also recently got a pair of PineBuds Pro for $70 and man that battery case is legit. I only have to charge that beast once a week. Just waiting on someone to release a better sound profile for those things because they are BAASSSY. But beyond the bass, the potential sound quality is actually quite good. I'm looking forward to what the pine64 community does with these.
I'll also say that I have audiophile hearing (I've been tested) and I absolutely hear the difference in sound quality using BT and a good set of cans - when it comes to earbuds, the difference is negligible between wired and wireless. Given that 1. I'm more often listening to words than music from my phone and 2. The convenience, I'll go for wireless more often than not if given the option. Plus, outside of niche phones and defunct LG phones, I never saw a headphone jack that could properly drive a good set of cans. There are way more output devices I would choose over a phone to drive high quality audio.
That all said, do I think manufacturers should remove the headphone jack? No. Apple did it to sell more airpods. Everyone else did it to save a nickle on their costs. Just because I don't use it doesn't mean it should go away. If anything, there's an accessibility element. BT buds are expensive. USB-C / Lightning buds are expensive. Aux buds are cheap. And wired buds are the easiest and cheapest way for someone to get audio out of a phone or talk on the phobe without fucking holding it in the air to broadcast their conversation to the world. And for that reason, I think the jack should ABSOLUTELY come back.
I have once owned wireless earbuds. It was cool to have free head, but I was too lazy to keep recharging them like every week or so. They finally died. Or at least the case did. I have replaced the charging chip in it, but it only extended the lifespan by a few weeks. It's now unable to charge both earbuds at once. Still, better than self-heating short-circuited case.
I just don't like them overall. Battery, latency, audio cuts after a bit of silence (power saving), and at the end, more waste.
I still use Bluetooth audio, but differently. With my laptop. When working on laptop, I have my earphones connected to it. But it is more convenient to play music on my phone, so I connect my phone to laptop for audio as well. In fact, I feel like the sound card in my laptop sounds a bit better than my phone, and with laptop I can use aptX HD.
(͡•_ ͡• )
Since you mentioned sound cards, do you use one for gaming/audio production?
I own an X-Fi XtremeGamer myself. 🧐
I use it, all the time.
Phones that lack a headphone jack or a microSD slot are worthless to me.
I only buy phones with headphone jack. But the way things are going,these greedy manufacturers will sooner or later make it obsolete. Just like the new shitty trend of selling phone without charger in the box.
I've never had a need for the headphone jack, so I didn't care one way or another when they started dissappearing. But, I can definitely see how removing such a simple and cheap port from phones would be such an issue for a lot of people. No one should be forced into replacing accessories that work perfectly for no reason, just adds to all the damned e-waste already generated.
I ended up getting Bluetooth headphones when I upgraded my Pixel. I deliberated over it for AGES.
Charging them is less annoying than I thought it would be (I bought my headphones in January and have only had to charge them about 4 times??) but it annoys me that you can't just plug them in and they work. Talking to anyone on the phone using them is terrible. Bluetooth cuts out sometimes, randomly. I miss my wired headphones :(
I'm in the minority that basically never needs one and is okay with using a USB-C dongle in those cases. But I don't mind phones having one, and perfectly understand the argument for keeping it. Form over function is definitely a factor in modern phone design.
I'm fine with the dongle because all I ever use the headphone jack for is for listening in my car (no bluetooth), so the dongle just stays on the end of the aux cord in my car.
No dongle would obviously be better, but it's a very minor inconvenience for me,
I find in the car is the most inconvenient. Having the GPS open drains the battery pretty quick on my old phone, leaving no way to drive for hours with both music and navigation.
Had to sacrifice it to ne able to use grapheneos
Yes, it just works. I use it daily.
I use wireless headphones. However, I like to have non-distracting background music at work (open-plan office), and I won't put my personal files (music) on a company-owned laptop. So I run a wire from my phone's headphone jack to the laptop line-in, and can thus play music without any mixing of data.
I voted wrong. Didn’t realize you had to drag. Oh well. I’m indifferent. Haven’t used one for years, but there are a few times it would have been useful
oh i did the same and i didn't realize until i read your comment. that's some bad ui
It's only bad ui if it doesn't lead to the outcome the designer wants.
/s
I would have made the same mistake if they didn't hit me with "VPN voting not allowed". Not a very good first impression from this website...
My fold 4 doesn't have one, and it's a huge pain in the ass, since literally every other device I have has one. Even my 2021 car has one.
On a plane? Forgot my dongle at home. In a friend's car? It doesn't work, all they have is 3.5mm and then a lightning cord. Can't even use it at home with my noise cancelling or opened backed headphones.
It's the most annoying part of this device. It came bundled with the bad Samsung bluetooth earbuds, which helpfully developed a click in one of the earbuds less than one year into ownership. They retail for about $300, laughably.
I've managed to avoid giving up the headphone jack, using a Pixel 5a right now. Although when I eventually have to get my next phone I have a feeling there might not be many choices left with the headphone jack.
Yes.
I strongly prefer there to be a port. I mostly use Bluetooth headsets, but sometimes your battery runs out, or you really want to use your super nice plug-in noise canceling headphones. It's better to have the option.
My phone doesn't have a headphone jack but even before they started disappearing I rarely used them anyway, much prefer wireless
I'm of the probably unpopular opinion around here that the less cables and IO I need the better, will often transfer large files over lan on WiFi rather than plug in because often in the time I've found a cable, plugged in, set the right USB mode, found the file on my phone's filesystem and transferred it the slightly longer wireless transfer would be done
Have a ThinkPad which has a ton of IO, but I think a couple thunderbolt/PD ports, a usb port and maybe an ethernet port if you do lots of fiddling with networking are plenty
Oh micro SD on the inside of phones too someone else made a point about that but that's more an upgradability/maintainability thing imo
A lot of phones are still limited to USB 2.0 speeds anyway and wireless won't be all that much slower and could potentially be faster.
Not supporting microSD annoys me a lot too. Especially on some phones that still have a dual SIM slot but don't support microSD on one of them. It's not even space at that point.
I do totally agree with your wireless mentality, i do the same with my mouse, keyboard, xbox controller, etc.
However, when it comes to headphone audio, i will always prefer wired, mainly for the better audio quality.
But... i have tried various bluetooth headphones in the past, and while the audio quality is decent enough, but everything else falls apart:
Battery won't even last 3 hours, and the battery meter on the phone is always wrong, (and i really don't want to keep an eye on the battery of THE device that makes everyday life bearable).
The buds themselves are either uncomfortable or fall too easily.
I went farther than 3 meters? Too bad, connection lost!
This is entirely dependant on what kind of headphones you buy though, if you buy nice ones they work just as well as wired
My over-ear headphones last a day of constant use and have a hot swappable backup battery (they also have a receiver for my PC) and can go anywhere in my flat with them without it cutting out
Earbuds I've got last most of a day and have a charging case that lasts weeks, similar range to the over ear ones
Both of which are very good sound quality (though the over ear ones are better when using 2.4ghz rather than Bluetooth), the same or better better than wired ones I've had before of similar price
If you're looking for good wireless buds try jabra elite 65t, those are the ones I've been using though they're a few generations behind at this point
I've also heard the Samsung buds are quite good
Yes I need, I use more the jack headphones than my Bluetooth ones. If I had to buy a phone this feature would come into consideration, with a heavy weight
I simply cannot imagine buying a phone without a headphone jack. I want as few things as possible that I need to keep the battery life of into account in my day to day life. Phones and laptops at least have display symbols for the battery life by default, I have never seen anyone in my country using cordless headphones that had some sort of indicator for how much battery charge remains in them. If some are sold in the first world then they would be out of my expense, and if there are apps available that would solve my gripe I have not encountered them. I do own a pair of my own, but I only use it in very niche circumstances for which I will have known to have charged it right beforehand, and I am lending them to family/friends more often than I am using them.
Even supposing that the battery thing wasn't an issue, the other hassles involved with going cordless (I've had to help people find them one they fall out of their ears way too many times for one lifetime) forbid me from ever even thinking about buying a phone without a headphone jack.
Some have a simple led indicator so you know roughly when you need to charge.
Also when connected, they may show battery percentage on your phone. But the ones I had didn't really understand percentage.
100% = full
90% = half discharged
80% = consider recharging
70% = dead in a few minutes
As someone who currently uses headphones throughout pretty much all his free time, yes I use wired whenever possible and my current phone was one I got because of the headphone jack. Last thing I want is to have to stop listening to whatever I'm listening to all because my bluetooth headphones need a charge.
Currently I'm stuck with a pair of shitty dollar store headphones, but they are so much better than the wireless ones I have because of just how long I can enjoy music, videos, etcetera, without needing to worry when my headphone battery needs charged. A headphone jack is extremely important to me.
I would probably prefer having a headphone jack. I am using wireless buds though. The problem with them is the price. While you can get decent wired earbuds for around $100 or even slightly less you have to pay at least $300 for decent wireless ones. Seriously I tried a few, but they all sounded like absolute garbage. It's probably a cheap DAC in all of them combined with even less available space due to batteries and other electronics.
Another downside is that you can only use them for like 5 hours at a time. It is fine most of the time, but on long train rides I hit the limitation a few times.
Overall I am happy with the wireless ones, they are convenient, but it is really expensive to replace them and you have fewer choices, so having wired headsets as an option would be great.
I never tried wireless Bluetooth interfaces though and I suspect they might be better than the inbuilt jack of phones which would make them obsolete in my opinion.
My wired earbuds were top of the line Japanese imports with custom cables and a nice USB-C DAC as well. Sounds like sex feels.
No way I'll give up my headphone jack... Even though I kinda had to. I made a better one!
I use it, and would pick it over not having one for sure. It's not the end of the world for me. I can use wired head phones till the foam falls apart, and even then you can get new muffs, but bluetooth ones just die on me at some point and the pain of repair is pretty high compared to how much I care.
No, but I do use a VPN which that site doesn't allow.
Wish it did. My Airpods I was gifted died (I am not an Apple user and only used them because they were free), and I bought an inexpensive amazon replacement but it turns out they're so sensitive that the slightest adjustment of the earbud in my ear turns the sound off but very firm tapping does not turn it back on. It's so annoying and I have great wired headphones.
I don't even want one. I was initially mad that big comoanies have such power to decide what I want for me. People always say "let the market decide" but the decisions really do come from the top and are often cynical as fuck. But no, I don't really want one.
Even though it was annoying to me at first and I hate wireless earbuds, I realized I don't actually want to play audio with my phone. I have an mp3 player for songs, I have a laptop for video, one of those is always a better choice.
Interesting! I rarely see someone who has an mp3 player.
I too was upset when phone makers started to remove the headphone jack, but after having a couple of phones without one, I basically realized that I didn't use it very much and I don't miss having it. I use Bluetooth these days anyway. I mostly listen to music on my phone while walking anyway, so having a wire that barely went from my ears to my phone was a hassle anyway.
Definitely prefer a phone with a proper jack over one without. I know there's adapters, but that's taking up the only available slot, and I don't appreciate that at all.
I've been using my Bluetooth buds for a couple of moths now, and while loving them, I don't want to be limited to only Bluetooth for my audio, be for unfortunate cases when the buds don't work, or for something as simple as having a great wired pair at hand.
I have both options, but my wired earbuds definitely sound better. I've even found that I get better wifi range with the wired ones plugged in too. My phone only has USB-C now so I just keep the little USB-C to 3.5mm audio adapter attached to my headphone cord
I'd rather ditch the phone entirely than switch to one without a headphone jack. Too long to explain, but I have a thing against wireless, a thing against corporations making decisions for me, and a thing against phones in general.
Yes yes two thousand times yes, Why would I have to worry about charging one more device if a cable can deliver ten times the quality at the same price?
My car doesn't have Bluetooth but does have an aux jack. I use my headphone jack on my phone every day I drive
You can use a Bluetooth FM transmitter, some have very decent audio quality, like I used one from Xiaomi (Roidmi something something) and for me it was undistinguishable from regular BT audio
Normally i use bluetooth earphones, but sometimes i use normal headphones so yes.
I would prefer they did, but it isn't the most important thing about my phone. My current phone does not, and I really like it.
iPod Shuffle had only one jack - a combination headphone/charging/syncing jack. If you're only going to have one jack, why not that one?
I have a jack. I do use it on occasion. But man some of you really, really hate Bluetooth.
It's not THAT bad. Maybe your phones just have a really shitty transmitter/receiver? Sure, it's not as good as it can get with a jack.
But I also don't want to have wires hanging while running or biking. Being able to change volume and songs without picking up my phone from pocket is also very convenient.
I still want a jack in my phone. But I really don't get the extreme hate on Bluetooth. It's not 2005 anymore. Bluetooth technology has progressed.
Wired headsets can do that too
The big issue for me is that there is any disadvantage between generations. My current 5 year old flagship has a headphone jack, expandable storage, and support for Bluetooth 5.0 which is all that most devices need. The only new phones that still have all 3 are cheap budget phones that lack in other areas compared to the one I already have.
I felt the same way. I recently broke my LG V20 and had to "upgrade" to a newer phone, and nothing felt like it was actually better in terms of features than my phone from 7 years ago
Yea, that’s been the case for phone development for a while now. Advancements aren’t coming in tactile feature sets anymore. I remember when every new generation of phone had a cool new price of technology that changed how you interacted with the phone, it gave me a reason to upgrade every year, sometimes more.
Now I’m on an iPhone 12 Pro and I see zero functional difference between my near 3 year old phone and my partner’s 14. The only reason I’ll be upgrading to the 15 will be for USBC.
I'm still using mine because of that.
I miss it so much. I'm on a Fairphone 4 now, and while the newer version of Android is nice, there are so many things I wish I had back. The secondary screen on the top and the fingerprint reader on the back chief among them.
Damn, wasnt that one of the last phones to have an IR Blaster?
IR blaster, FM tuner, removable/replaceable battery (with lots of expanded 3rd party batteries available), secondary screen for checking notifications, hi-fi DAC, headphone jack, fingerprint reader in my preferred position (on the back), one of the first phones to use multiple camera lenses for different zoom levels. It was an incredibly feature-rich phone, which isn't a thing anymore sadly.
Society unironically peaked in 2016
So I have a:
These are all fairly recent devices, with the Sony one being the most recent headphones in it's series, running the latest firmware too, which was released last month.
Now here are my issues:
- Fold 4: When I get a call on Google Meet or Duo and I turn on my headphones, the audio doesn't work. I have to disconnect the call, close the app, and reconnect for it to work.
- MacBook: Similar thing happens with Microsoft Teams. In this case though, my headphones is already paired with my MacBook and connected, so I fire up Teams (from scratch) and dial in to a meeting. You'd expect it to work fine right, but the audio doesn't work, even though Teams detects my headphones as the output device. I have to turn my headphones off and on during the call (or reboot my MacBook) for it to work properly.
I can reproduce these issues consistently. I'm not a 100% sure if it's an issue with my Sony headphones, but the point is, all these products that I've listed are fairly recent and fairly expensive, and I deserve a better user experience. Bluetooth has indeed come a long way, and at least for me, audio quality isn't really an issue, but the fact that these sort of connectivity issues are still occurring on recent, premium devices, is unacceptable.
I have a pixel 6a. I have pixel buds. And I have a fossil sport gen 5 wear os watch.
Whne my phone rings, it's a crap shoot which device will output audio and receive my voice.
Bluetooth sucks donkey balls.
I don't hate bluetooth. I hate not having the headphone jack. Bluetooth headphones are nice but don't cover all use cases. It doesn't have to be a one or the other thing. Especially when they aren't adding anything additional on the phones that don't have a headphone jack. They're just cutting features. The phones aren't even cheaper for it.
I agree. I want a jack on my phone. I probably use Bluetooth 9/10 times. But that 1/10 I'm really glad I got a jack. It's fine if the phone has to be a little bit thicker to fit a jack... use the extra space for a larger battery while you're at it.
Not sure when I'll buy a new phone. Still using a Galaxy S10. But if it doesn't have a jack. I'm not interested. And give me access to a SD memory card too. Fuck internal storage.
I really like that bluetooth devices can still work at distances farther than a typical cable would allow. I have a decently-sized studio apartment and I can see my computer screen from most places. It's nice to continue watching a video as I move around the apartment to clean, get up to stretch, play with my cat, etc.
You could probably get wired headphones that long, but then you'd be dealing with that giant cable all the time. Or you'd have to constantly swap cables and interrupt the audio during that time. My AirPods work reliably from 15ft away. I can't argue with that convenience.
I live in a 3 bedroom 1000sqft house and walk around with my AirPods on between rooms no problem. I’d need a 100’+ cable to have that type of freedom with wired. Range is unparalleled between the two.
That said, this is a phone we’re talking about which is quite easy to bring with me between rooms, and even if I’d prefer to be charging my phone there’s a high likelihood I’d be going back to my desk shortly anyway since I predominantly use my AirPods while I’m working.
It's better than it was, but it still isn't great. I would rate Bluetooth as tolerable now, and sometimes frustrating depending on the devices being used.
Wired has a charm of simplicity that is unrivaled. Dependable, quick and easy to use.
I require a headphone jack because I require FM radio. I will die on this hill.
Until reading this question, I completely forgot head phone jacks used to be a thing in phones. In love my first gen AirPods and JBL over the ear wireless headphones. The battery lasts forever, and they easily switch between my devices.
I love not having cords!
In my car I just connect with wireless CarPlay and charge wirelessly as well.
I want technology that's as uncomplicated as possible for accomplishing the task, so yes. Wired is better than wireless for anything meant to only work in proximity to something else.
Yes. Wireless never works. Bluetooth is proprietary bs
I like wired headphones but I have never really had any huge problems with wireless in this day and age.
And Bluetooth is not proprietary.
Heck yeah, rocking the Sony Xperia with the headphone jack as a big selling point for me, alongside the lack of notch etc. I use it most days with my Apple ear buds coupled with wavelet auto eq. Genuinely sound great and subtle enough to feel comfortable with them in public. I have a pair of wh1000-xm3s In my bag but I go for them far less often.
You can also get 90 degree angled headphone plugs which don't stick out much at all. Mskes me less worried when i have my phone in my pocket and I'm walking around.
As for 90 degree usb-c headphone adapters... nowhere to be found.
Nice try, Samsung
I'd like one, sure.
It's not a deal breaker either way. I have a USB dongle with a headphone jack so it's not a big deal.
I absolutely want wired headphones, though. One less set of batteries to worry about, especially when traveling internationally.
I've used it a lot especially when console gaming and using my phone for Discord chat. So even tho I use BT earphones more often, it's useful to have.
USB dongles are unacceptable because I use magnetic cables, and USB ports are notoriously prone to breaking, making the whole phone useless.
Gimme a phone with 2 USB ports and I won't care about a headphone jack that much.
I need to have the audio in sync with the video so I need to have a headphone jack on all my devices
I use headphones every night to listen to audiobooks or YouTube videos until I fall asleep.
Yes. I use my headphone jack at least 3 times a week for 4 hours at a time went I'm on dialysis.
Plus for home listening I have a nice pair of over ear headphones which I run off a mobile DAC/AMP which connects to the phone via 3.5mm aux cable.
I won't buy a phone if it doesn't have a headphone jack. Hence my previous phone was an LG30 and my current is a Sony Xperia 10iii.
I once tried using Bluetooth in ear headphones at dialysis and the damn thing fell out of my ear and onto the floor. Had to leave it there for hours until I was unhooked from the machine. Thank goodness the cleaner never came to sweep otherwise it would be lost forever.
With wired this is not a problem, neither is forgetting to charge them since they don't need charging.
I can't stand Bluetooth headphones, the delay is unbearable. It's gotta be wired or 2.4ghz for me.
I would if I had one.
I just got a new phone that doesn't have it, and I very strongly miss it. I hate having to charge wireless devices. Everything that I can, I get wired.
Doesn't help much that lately it's been getting harder and harder to find good compact wired earphones, most companies pivoted to wireless... And of those that I find, most are the in-ear type with that rubber tip you squeeze deep into your ear... I also don't like that. Guess I'll have to move to over-ears for everything.
No, and I don't miss it at all.
I've used BT headphones even when my last two devices had jacks and wouldn't want to go back.
Prior to that, I can't count the number of times I would snag the wires on something or get them tangled in some way.
Now I use my BT bone conduction headphones everywhere.
Same, I switched to wireless before I lost the jack, for the same reasons.
My current phone has headphone jack and it is something that wikl weigh in on the future choice of another phone.
Wireless headphones are not a convinience for me.
I finally tried a little Bluetooth amp and found my wired earphones sound better than they ever did plugged into the phone directly. Couldn't hear an improvement when plugging into the usb port and using as a usb DAC. So i guess the high quality ldac codec must be kinda good.
Would still prefer the 3.5mm option of course - much more useful for aux out.
Have one, use it all the time.
Yes
I have too many pairs of headphones and have been buying more wired ones rather than Bluetooth as they just don't last as long (they are convenient, I'll admit).
The 3.5mm Jack is just so handy to have ratger than a dongle (SD card for storing all the music helps too).
I used to have the opposite issue. It was always the wire right near the jack that would wear out from having my phone in my pocket so my wired ear pods would always wear out in less than a year. Then I got a set of Bluetooth earbuds that had a wire between them. They lasted 2-3 years before the wire wore out. Now I’ve got a set of fully wireless buds and they’ve so far lasted longer than any other ones I’ve had.
I greatly prefer it. Basically all high quality headphones are wired only... and even an equivalent wireless headphone is more expensive and more stuff to carry (gotta carry those charging cases with them). Just give me my damn port.
As someone who currently uses headphones throughout pretty much all his free time, yes I use wired whenever possible and my current phone was one I got because of the headphone jack. Last thing I want is to have to stop listening to whatever I'm listening to all because my bluetooth headphones need a charge.
Currently I'm stuck with a pair of shitty dollar store headphones, but they are so much better than the wireless ones I have because of just how long I can enjoy music, videos, etcetera, without needing to worry when my headphone battery needs charged. A headphone jack is extremely important to me.
I won't buy a phone without it. Currently on a Pixel 5a 5g
I was annoyed when I found out the phone I was considering didn’t have a headphone jack, but after checking the prices of Bluetooth headphones, I wasn’t as concerned. The battery charge for the headphones lasted longer than I was expecting, too. Now I’ve grown to prefer them, and wouldn’t go back even if I had the option.
I much prefer wireless headphones, because I keep breaking every plug. I even tried soldering them, but that ended in a catastrophe lol. That being said, I recently lost my wireless pair and had to pick my old K450. Now I'm grateful that I picked a phone with a headphone jack. I wasn't even checking if it has one while buying.
I do not use mine, because if I want to listen to something in public, I just save it for later, when I'm home. Then I can play it at whatever volume I want.
Back when I went to the gym before covid, I had a dedicated music device I used for music, not my phone.
Yes, I would reconsider buying a phone that didn't have one. That said, I use a bluetooth speaker or bluetooth headphones.
It's preferred, but not a requirement. There are plenty of cheap usb-c to 3.5 headphone jack adapters available. My current phone has a headphone jack though.
No, i hate cables and if i really Need cable aux i have an usb-c to aux adpter.
I mean, why in the world with someone at all concerned about security want a way to listen to their phone without the chance of someone listening in because of bluetooth?
I missed it until I got AirPods. Now I got the pro ones and they’re amazing. I also use BT receivers if I want to plug to a stereo system or something like that.
I hate wires.
Username does not check out. :P
True...
I used to go through so many pairs of headphones because the wires would inevitably get caught on things and pull; at the gym, it was particularly bothersome. I have a pair of Audio Technicas with a wire that can be removed (and, incidentally, a Bluetooth option but the lag is awful) but that’s more for stationary use. Otherwise, wireless has been a miracle for me.
My current phone does not have a headphone jack but I wish it did. It seems to struggle with Bluetooth sometimes, dropping connections randomly.
My phone (Pixel 6) doesn't have one but I wish it did. I still use an aux cord to listen in my car or to plug into my amplifier when I practice on headphones, so I have to use 3.5mm to USB-C converter dongles. I also can't charge my phone while using an aux cable now which is annoying.
I like wired. They always connect to the device I want it to connect to the first time.
I use my audio jack in my car. The car has Bluetooth but only supports calls, no support for music.
Another point to make is that people here are saying wireless headphones are just as good as wired ones nowadays, but I don't think that applies to cheap ones.
Nowadays I very rarely use headphones with my phone out in public, so I don't see much purpose in spending money on a good pair for myself. I bought a cheap set of wireless ones awhile ago and they're terrible. They always struggle to connect to my phone and they have abysmal range, it struggles if my phone is sitting next to me rather than in my hands. I find any pair of cheap wired headphones you can get from any corner shop or supermarket is way cheaper and much more reliable than most cheap wireless ones.
My phone (Pixel 7) does not have one. On occasion I use a pair of wired USB-C headphones but only for media. I do not use headphones for calls. Bluetooth in the car for calls and YouTube Music.
Have only bought phones that have a headphone jack. Never ones that dont.
I'd like to have a headphone jack but I'm not that bothered either way. USB C dongles are cheap and I just leave it attached to my headphones.
That works unless u use the headphones for music production aswell then the dongle need constant replacing
yes
I want it and use it and therefore got a S10+ just bc it's Samsung last flagship that featured it. What's even more annoying, that my 10" tablet hasn't got one there is absolutely no shortage in space on that device why you had to drop it.
It would be nice if it did, but my newer Bluetooth headphones are a joy, so it doesn't matter most of the time.
Used it once to debug an audio problem, haven't used wired headphones since years
I have it but I have never used it. I've been using my Galaxy note 9 user since December 2018. I have active noice cancelling headphones for most scenarios and true wireless earphones for gym.
I used to be quite hardline on this, however now I use a portable DAP (Hiby R5 Gen 2) for my music. It has a class A amplifier, balanced output, a Terabyte of storage, and streams Qubuz Hi-Res. So I don't use my phone now.
It's pretty rare that I use wired headphones, I prefer them wireless.
I'm told that wired headphones have higher range audio support, but it's not like the music I stream from Spotify would support that anyways...
Man I can only dream of a new pixel having a headphone jack. And ain't no way I'm getting off grepheneos.
I use it daily, including right now.
Mine has one but even though I don't use it, it's good to have it for emergency situations when your bluetooth headphones are out of battery.
No, I really enjoy my shokz bone conduction headphones for general work calls, audiobooks, chores, running, etc. It's like I simply have the audio in my head.
They are Bluetooth and last all day, sometimes multiple if I'm not in meetings all day. They are waterproof, I can even swim with them.
Honestly running got me away from wired headphones the most
You ask three different questions here but expect only one response.
I don't care about the headphone jack. Bluetooth earbuds are super convenient, and when I want higher quality I plug in a Fiio BTR5 to the USB-C port and use that to power good headphones. Way better than a built in dac/amp would be.
Eh, don't care. If it has it nice enough but I have two great pairs of BT headphones and a USB-C pair.
Yes
My phone has a headphone jack and dual SIM cards but I would totally trade the jack for an SD Card slot.
Sometimes the second sim card slot can be used as an SD card slot, maybe yours can too?
I have had exclusively Bluetooth headphones for almost a decade at this point. I keep a backup pair of wired usb-c earbuds in my glove box in case I don't foresee needing my wireless buds.
Controversial take - sometimes you've just got to adapt to the times. I'll never forgive everyone for removing SD expansion in phones, because there's absolutely no replacement except "buy our expensive cloud storage and own nothing ever!" or "spend SIGNIFICANTLY MORE THAN THE ACTUAL COST OF FLASH STORAGE to increase your onboard storage!" which are both unacceptable. But wireless headphones are perfectly acceptable. If I want an audiophile experience, I'm absolutely not using my phone anyways.
I use bluetooth earbuds for work - I used wired buds up until this job, but I ended up constantly ripping them out of my ear by accident, UUUUGGGGHHHHHH. But I would still be using wired if I could. My husband also uses wireless earbuds at work, but needs a headphone jack to play music through his ancient work truck. He had an adapter while he had a phone w/o a jack, but then he couldn't charge his phone while listening to music. I know there are splitters out there, but we didn't end up buying one, and he just replaced his phone with a new one that includes a headphone jack.
I'm probably the odd one out, and I used to be infuriated by the idea that my phone didn't have a headphone jack, but I got used to not having it.
I only use wireless headphones now, and I have a USB-C adapter I can use in case I do want to use an aux port. Have been tempted to buy some decent "Chi-Fi" wired earphones, I do miss higher quality sound.
I wish my tablet had a headphone jack. I have to use an adapter but I would want one on there by default. I haaaaate bluetooth headphones. Too much delay. And no, I don't have a phone.
I use BT only.
Rarely. I do have a pair of Buds Live tho
I bought a used phone and needed good low light camera for documentation of network closets, so I had to compromise on the wish for a headphone jack. Now I got an adapter that I use at home to use my headphones for calls. On the go I have noise cancelling equipment that uses bluetooth anyway. It would still be more handy to have the jack built in.
I personally don't use sound/videos not at home
Mine doesn't have a headphone jack but Xiaomi did provide a Type C to Headphone jack adapter in the box. It would have been better to have it embedded in the phone itself. But now, what happens is I don't use the phone while it's charging. So good enough for me.