(Posting this here rather than !askandroid@lemdro.id as it’s a quite general question)
I had a look at the GSM Arena phone finder, and it the choice is getting smaller and smaller every year (only 43 phones from 2023, reviewed by the site, had a jack)
The remaining ones are mostly
- Xiaomi Redmi
- Zenfones
- Sony
- Samsung entry range
So, has everyone switched to Bluetooth / USB-C dongles, or are there still a few people holding to the jack until the very end?
I honestly stopped caring a long time ago. I’ve been using bluetooth headphones exclusively since before the jacks started going away, and I’m just not bothered by it.
It would have been nice for them to stick around, but it’s not really a hill I’m willing to die on.
Gave up, I use USB C to 3.5mm dongle
My preference while buying phone:
- “>8GB ram”
- “>250 GB storage”
- 120Hz display
- Battery capacity “>5500mah”,
- SD card option,
- Headphone jack,
- Pretty recent chip, if not the latest,
- Waterproof ip68 minimum
I don’t care wheather its Chinese or Taiwanese or American or any other.
I usually debloat the device on the first day. With ADB
@Blaze I’m not buying phones that often, but I recently changed to a Nokia G22 (yes, they also have phones with jack), and one of the things that made me decide on that was the jack as well. I got a pair of wireless headsets from work and I can say they’re pretty good, but I am still not over the thought that I have one more thing to charge its battery every once in a while. Wired headphones are pretty much okay and I don’t see any problem with them that would make me switch (at least right now).
Thanks for sharing! I just had a look at Nokia phones, the G22 is a bit too large for me, but the X30 seems interesting (though a bit pricey)
@Blaze It is larger than I thought, indeed 😁 but I see they still tend to stick with stock Android even though they’re not really releasing any android one phones any longer.
Only With the 3.5 mm audio jack. Bluetooth devices always have some delay, never are immune from connection problems or intermittent readback (especially if you have other devices you switch between), and don’t last as long as they advertise. The delay thing is particularly irksome on the phone and watching videos. Much less important for music, but I’m not the kinda guy who plays music a lot. The battery thing is probably less of an issue these days, and could maybe be discarded, but I also forget to charge important devices, so that’s a me thing and party of the reason.
Agree on most of your your points. Which phone do you use?
The No-Longer-Supported LG G7 ThinQ. Not upgrading until it blows up in my pocket.
My hill is the microsd card slot. I might have to figure out how to make my note 20 ultra last another 40 years, though. :-(
On another note; if compatible, APTX Bluetooth codec is pretty lag free when watching streaming videos. For local videos, there is a bit of noticeable lag on a lot of players, but I use VLC and it has an audio/video sync setting you can manually adjust so it matches up correctly and it will forever save that setup for you.
I buy mid-range devices, so while I haven’t gone out of my way to get a device with a jack, my current device still has one, and it is the OnePlus Nord N200 5G, but if I did not have it, I would not be upset about it.
I’ve given up but I do wish there were better USB-C audio solutions. Android has always been lacking in the USB audio department and I have often been left feeling defeated when a car or other stereo system has USB audio input that only works with iPod/iPhone. It’s just sad that even now with USB-C, audio output with Android is still so finicky.
I just add a usbc to audio/charging dongle to them. Getting a phone with a audio jack I feel like is when I wanted to keep the hardware keyboard, I was just walking the boulder up the hill I just was like there was an easy off that mountain.
For me the usb c to audio Jack adapters were a letdown. From the three I bought - all of them had a constant static noise. Especially hearable on lower noises. Don’t know if it was just the adapters I got, or if it was just a quirk my phone had, but I’ll stick with the dedicated usb jack for now.
I bought one off the shelf at like Target or something before I got my first pair of Bluetooth headphones. The adapter is trash. Static noise like you said and when slightly kinked it just stops working. It’s not like I used it forever just fine before it started doing all this…it was trash to begin with. Apparently a lot of these adapters are just known to suck.
I had that only when they got damaged, but they easily get damaged
To be honest I would have thought I would have got the same, I got some random one and its worked good for over two years now. I only use it for audio books so maybe I am missing out on some fucked up things in the connection.
Still a requirement for me. I listen to music and podcasts while I run, and I run a lot. But I don’t want to deal with the privacy issues of leaving my BT on when I leave home. And USB dongles physical connections just aren’t as reliable with a lot of motion.
Which phone do you use?
Redmi Note 7. It’s pretty old. Luckily the batteries are still ok.
Thanks!
I run also, and trust me try wireless, such a better experience without the entangling cables. Specially for sport.
I know, it’s defo more comfortable. Like I said, I just can’t deal with the privacy issues related to BT. If there were earbuds supporting some kind of privacy friendly wireless protocol, I’d use them.
Do you want to elaborate on the privacy point?
I personally don’t care if somebody snoops on the music I hear…
It’s not the music, it’s location data. BT broadcasts a unique ID to your device. Every device with BT will receive that ID to check if it knows you. That’s inherent to the protocol and works as designed. Apps will be able to learn yours and other peoples location that way. That’s basically how Apples Airtag network operates.
That would be in the few meters range BT works…
And maybe the attacker needs to know already that you are you for that to work…
Of course if you use apple or google or Samsung stuff, in general if your stuff is already tracked to you…
I drive mostly around, they can already track me with my car license plate. BT doesn’t give out anything of added value.
So no, I do not really understand the issue, but this doesn’t mean I don’t respect your choice.
I think you severely underestimate how our devices are networked nowadays. It’s not about the device directly next to you. It’s about what is beeing agreggated in the back end. Google and Apple have an extensive BT and Wifi map that can locate specific devices very accurately at all times. Which of course is enriched with other device data from installed apps, like where you shop, what you shop, maybe even vitals from your smartwatch etc. to create a scarily accurate persona attached to your name. That’s on a whole other level than what you can do with a license plate.
That being sad I respect your choice as well. Being privacy conscientious is a bit of work.
Only with audio jack
Which phone do you use?
You won’t find it in the west. Its Infinix X6831
Thanks
I always hated the noise you got from wired headphones every time you moved, so I was very happy as soon as wireless headphones stopped being terrible. Now I only use wireless so I really don’t need a 3.5mm slot, and I can use an adapter on the off chance I do. Also I use GrapheneOS so it’s not like I really have a choice!
I’m pretty happy with Pixels for the moment, so it’s a $5 USB-C to 1/8" dongle for me. That or the Pixel Buds I got for free as as promo with the phone. I’ve never had to charge and use the converter at the same time, but I believe there are cheap dongles that can do that too.
There are but they are not reliable, even from reputable companies. I had both the ones I tried break very quickly, and moved back to requiring a headphone jack after that.
Which phone do you use at the moment?
Sony Xperia 1V
Thanks
It’s very good but very expensive and the software support is not defined (but previous ones have been 2 years of security updates, which is terrible). I’m hoping Lineage OS will extend the usefulness or I may regret it. I couldn’t find another phone that had microSD and headphone jack that I wanted.
I don’t listen to music away from my desktop very often these days, as that experience has mostly been replaced by audiobooks and podcasts. So in a purely selfish sense, the disappearance of the 3.5 mm jack doesn’t really affect me. I am content with Bluetooth for the majority of my use cases. However, I am still not convinced that the 3.5 mm jack had to disappear as early as it did or that engineers and designers can’t find a way to include it on a modern, high end smartphone, so in that sense its disappearance annoys me. Until recently I have also been using a variety of 2017-18 era phones, all of which have a 3.5 mm jack, and it is very satisfying to have the occasional music listening session in a cosy setting like my bed with studio headphones plugged in.
The problem I have with Bluetooth vs wired, is the same problem I have with lossy vs lossless music and low vs high bitrate video. What frustrates me is not that I can immediately discern a difference (though depending on the material and comparison, sometimes it’s quite obvious) but rather that if I think I hear an imperfection my immediate thought is “would this sound better through my wired headphones?”. And as soon as that thought pops into my head I find myself actively listening for further imperfections to prove my theory, instead of just relaxing and enjoying the music like I intended to. With wired headphones I know that it’s very unlikely there will be any quality problems and I can just get completely immersed in the experience.
I tried to hold out, but for my current phone I prioritized camera quality over headphone jack. I definitely use the cameras more than the headphones.
With that being said, those two features are essentially mutually exclusive. Good cameras are a “flagship” feature, whereas lacking headphone jacks are also a “flagship” feature.
The only exception is Sony, which unfortunately is very overpriced.
Likely sound like cranky old man but I’ll be catching phones with a jack as long as I can! Not mad about having the option for wireless, but I’m a bit of a purist.
Plus once in a blue moon I’ll DJ without Wi-Fi and use the phone to pull up a tune I don’t have in my physical storage. Much harder to do that without 3.5mm jack.
Which phone do you use?
Still on a pretty old Galaxy 9, been putting off the upgrade forever. Not even sure what the cool kids are using these days. Need to hit that research phase a bit
