Where's that headphone jack boyo?
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Are we not well past a point where the Fairphone 6's DAC for the 3.5 mm jack would be better for audio quality than Bluetooth 5.4 with aptX Adaptive/LDAC? When headphone jacks were being removed from phones around the mid-2010s, it was ridiculous, greedy, and premature. Now, though? I find wireless earbuds vastly nicer and more convenient for phones, and I would only go with wired, say, on a vacation where I can use a cheap $20 junk drawer pair and not mourn them if they get lost somewhere – at which point I can just use a dongle for a weekend or whatever.
I still always want a microSD card slot, but I'd prefer that my phone not have a headphone jack at this point. I think the people who still mourn the loss of the 3.5 mm jack are a vastly smaller minority than they think they are. Which is fine; you're still welcome as a consumer to buy or not buy a phone based off that. But I also think that nagging Fairphone over the removal of the 3.5 mm jack with the Fairphone 4 in 2021 is "old man yelling at clouds" territory.
Pushing wireless has been frustrating to me because of the fact that the batteries inside those tools will die sooner or later. Majority of the time, I am fine with being wired. The good news is that IEMs have evolved a lot over the past decade with great options even at $20 that include detachable cables from the earbuds. What's even cooler is that you can choose for your audio connectivity to be USB-C for those that miss the 3.5mm jack. I'll provide a $20 example below:
https://hangout.audio/products/tangzu-waner-sg-2?variant=41999443132464
For me, I already have very good headphones from years ago, and they are all working. I don't want to buy additional Bluetooth headphones just for a Smartphone. Why do I have to buy additional gears just to be able to use my perfectly functional old ones? Or do I have to accept that Smartphones nowadays are just not for music?
Also, if you need wired you can get USB-C headphones.
Now you can't listen and charge your phone at the same time.
To me anyway, that's basically a non-factor these days:
- From the factory, phones generally have much longer battery lives than when 3.5 mm jacks thrived. For example (bit of an outlier), my S23 Ultra lasts me two days from 80%. And speaking of that, the battery life capacity over time is less bad now thanks to e.g. techniques like stopping charging early.
- Phones charge much faster now than, again, when 3.5 mm jacks thrived. 10 minutes of charging could easily last me through several hours.
- Wireless charging is a standard feature of modern smartphones, and it's even decently fast (I've usually seen 15W).
So to me anyway, this conflict would arise and be frustrating in the case that: "Oh shit, I used my phone like crazy yesterday and forgot to charge it overnight. It's so dire that I need to charge it now when I want to listen to something, and for some reason I can't 1) just charge it wirelessly, 2) listen without headphones for 10-ish minutes, 3) listen on another device if I'm using/near one, or 4) go find something to do other than listen to music on my phone for the 10 minutes it takes my phone to charge another 20%."
TL;DR: If you're absent-minded as hell, chronically on your phone listening to music etc., unwilling to think even slightly outside the box, and impatient to the level of a small child, then USB-C headphones will be a devastating downgrade.
I like to listen to podcasts in bed, often falling asleep during. Therefore wireless ones are not feasible as they get lost.
I like to be able to charge my phone at the same time, as it's a long period where I don't use the thing and it's in one place.
Could this be solved attentively? Sure, but changing the thing that is perfectly fine will force me to change my routine, against which I'm naturally hesitant.
Plus if you care about audio quality you were using an external dac anyway
Now, though? I find wireless earbuds vastly nicer and more convenient for phones
Love the fact their tiny, non-replaceable lithium batteries means they're quite literally disposable products you'll have to keep buying and throwing away.
Sorry, the phone doesn't have a headphone jack?
They removed it 2 models ago
Every time someone mentions the headphone jack, comes a legion of people defending the corporations. People will really accept anything they do and bully the ones who don't want to submit. That's impressive! And we're in a place with higher-than-average corporation haters.
It's even more impressive when we think about how Bluetooth earphone users don't gain anything by removing the jack, neither lose anything by keeping it. It literally doesn't affect them, but heavily affects anyone who uses wired phones or other stuff. People simply use their energy against others, in favor of corporations for absolutely no benefits for them, but simply for fucking the other people. I can't understand this behavior.
People will really accept anything they do and bully the ones who don’t want to submit. That’s impressive! And we’re in a place with higher-than-average corporation haters.
I don't see it that way at all. Would I personally like to see the headphone jack return? Sure. But there are about 5,002 more important issues when it comes to tech corporations (Ie. privacy, repairability, software support, obsolescence, etc... just to name a few). People aren't defending corporations as much as they are "picking their battles".
Your headphone jack battle is inconsequential and frankly kind of stupid in the larger scheme of the war right now. Would it be great to get to a point where all the battles are won and all we have to worry about is a damn headphone jack? Absolutely. But we're not there.
So, are people picking their battles by practically bullying others into thinking they're wrong and outdated? They could simply ignore people talking about phone jacks, but they don't. They're not picking battles. They're actively fighting, and on the corps' side.
Also, there's always a bigger battle. If we think like this, no one will ever do anything. Corporations don't go all in. They take things away from us one small step at a time, and people allow it, because they're always small things, but just like boiling frogs, we will end up into a cyberpunk era.
We need a return the headphone jack movement, it makes me glad I still use my pixel 3a for Ubuntu Touch.
Yeah I'm still stuck with my LG V30 and refuse to upgrade because the DAC + Jack is soo good.
Then why are fairphones so expensive for their specs?
Because they cannot bulk buy parts and hire engineers like how the larger manufacturers can.
So then... sustainable phones cost more?
Well not if larger manufacturers made them I guess? Fairphone just doesn't get the same prices even from the same vendors, if there's any that overlap between say them and Samsung.
It is a myth that being sustainable is why.
I think the idea is that you can make them but the large manufacturers actively choose not to, because being anti-consumer, anti-sustainability, and anti-repair is not a problem in their business model, it's a core strategy of it.
Why is the fairphone more expensive than comparable hardware, then?
A lot of it is also economies of scale and full control of the supply chain. The unethical behavior is to squeeze as much profit as possible.
Each new Fairphone is increasingly more custom whereas the first ones used more stock parts. When you order elections from China, manufacturers might refuse to make custom parts for a small room, or charge a lot for it.
Is the Fairphone 6 really significantly more expensive still?
I don't think it is. In the UK its price and specs seem pretty on par with the Pixel 9a
Fairphones have a worse record than any other phone I ever owned in regards to sustainability for me. The phones become unusable as soon as the new model releases due to their non existing software quality, and it seems that they just stop bothering with tests for their previous models. I bought the Fairphone 4 for myself and the Fairphone 5 for my mother and both had software issues without end. In both cases the ability to make and receive phone calls broke after an android update. Imagine not being able to call emergency services because of a software update. Imagine dying because the developers at Fairphone didn't bother to test their shit. That is not even mentioning that security updates were also always months late. I truly wanted to like them but I couldn't be bothered with these broken phones anymore and bought a refurbished Pixel, for not even half the price of a Fairphone, and flashed it with GrapheneOS instead.
Also the best path for sustainability is to NOT BUY A NEW PHONE EVERY 2-3 YEARS.
Don't buy fairphone. Try to run your current phone for 7 more years.
I use my phones until they start crashing due to battery issues.
Tends to be about 6 years for that to happen, at least with the mid range phones I tend to buy.
My Nexus 4 did not survive an intense summer of Pokemon Go, and my Huawei Honor whatever number it was eventually would die just from opening the camera. I'd get the batteries replaced, but by the time they die I'm feeling the age of them even more than in my knees.
I think you can change some batteries. Managed to change a pixel's battery by myself using a hair drier.
I agree and that was the reason I initially chose a Fairphone but the promised 7 years of security updates also turned out to be a half-truth, after three years I only got quarterly security updates. I tolerated four years of buggy software the update that broke the phone part of my smartphone was just the last nail in the coffin.
For me Fairphone has been good. I bought my fp3 on release in 2019 for about 400 euro and it is still going strong today, 6 years later (I am in fact using it right now)
Not to say that there haven't been software problems at all but it has not been that bad and was fixed over time.
Also had no big problems with my FP4
Imagine dying
I gotta say, you had me until you cranked it to 11.
Not being able to call with a phone after an OS update is definitely a deal breaker. But "if I don't have my phone on me, I'll die" is the kind of hyperbole that has me doubt your entire testimonial.
Imagine dying wasn't hyperbole it is a real concern of mine. I commute with a bicycle to work and also cycle a lot in my free time. I wouldn't be the first cyclist injured or even killed in a hit and run accident, so a phone that is unable to make a emergency call when I need it is not something I am willing to risk.
Except Fairphones are usually overpriced for the quality...
HMD has done a decent job with their recent phones at making them user repairable.
Fairphones are almost certainly less profitable than their Apple/Pixel competitors.
But a big chunk of that cost is coming from advertising. Another big chunk is stock buybacks. There's so much fat to cut before you actually get to hardware/software quality.
Fairphone 6 is great by the way! Coming from a long time iPhone user.
Came from Pixel 6 and picked up a fairphone 6 last week. The camera is sadly not as good but everything else is great (so far).
Bought a fp 5 lately. It's a quality nightmare. Has a bug regarding 'fluid in usb port' error message. Consequence: phone does not charge. Phone is brand new. Google the bug. Turns out a hundreds of other users reported the bug already 9 months back via fp user forum. Nothing has happened. They just let it rot.
Sent it to repair. Got it back with the same bug again. Have had all fp models in the past. Was okay happy, but my fp journey ends here. I think the company has serious problems.