For the crazy people like me who won’t let it go
nah, it’s crazy that phone designers let it go
I mean, I can count how many times I’ve thought “damn I wish I still had wired headphones” on zero hands.
My complaint has always been that the stupid things need to endlessly be recharged.
I’ve got some AirPod Pros and they’re great… for about 4 hours.
Then you’re stopping what you’re doing, recharging for half an hour, and then you’re good for uh, another 3 hours because that wasn’t a full charge.
And after the 2nd or 3rd time you’ve done that, your case is dead and you get to throw everything on a charger for a couple of hours.
Ooooooooor I can put in my wired headphones, and not give a shit about any of that, because that’s not how those work at all.
I suppose most people don’t spend most of their day listening to podcasts and audiobooks and thus 4 hours is fine, but good lord is it annoying as crap.
I had a similar problem. If thats your only limiation, check out the audiotechnica ATH-CKS50TW. Really excellent sound quality, the headphones themselves have 12hrs continuous use and the headphone case holds 24hrs of charge. Has full noise cancelling, and the headphones can be used independently of one another like airpods.
I can wear them on the bus to work, all day at work, and then on the ride home and still have an hour or two of charge left over before I have to put them back in their case.
You have airpod pros but spending $5 USB-Aux adapter is where you draw the line?
But then you always need that adapter with you and you can’t charge at the same time
You can leave it attached to the end of your headphone wire
If the latter is a concern, there are adapters that allow this as well, which, you can also leave attached to the end of your charging cord
Do airpods really suck that much? I’ve used the Anker ones for years, for about an hour 3-5 times a week, and I need to charge them… maybe once every six weeks? It’s infrequently enough that I hardly notice.
They really do.
The sound great, and the ANC is great, but the “official” battery life for a brand new one (which these are not) is “up to 4.5 hours” with ANC on, and 5 without it.
It ends up being 2-3 charge cycles basically every day, plus a full recharge of the charging case.
They do, however, work amazingly well if you’re in the Apple ecosystem; for example they’ll swap between my iPad and Mac Mini if audio starts on one or the other.
But for actually sitting down with something and listening to a thing, I’d rather just plug in some headphones (via the lovely USB-C dongle) and not have to think about if the stupid things are going to die before I’m ready to stop listening.
(Disclaimer: I’m also a weirdo who doesn’t carry a smartphone, and still uses an iPod for listening to stuff outside of the house, so feel free to roll your eyes and disregard my obviously bad opinions :P )
Sound great? Either you’ve never had a pair of cans on, or you might want to consider getting your hearing checked. The membranes in airpods are too small to recreate full frequency spectrum. Yeah, they’re more clear than the earbuds of yore, but they can’t hold a candle to my $30 Gemini DJ headphones. No, they don’t have any noise canceling, but I like to hear the car that’s about to run me over when I’m out and about, and if you turn em up a little you won’t hear anything else anyway. Never have to charge, and pure, clean sound including REAL bass and not some distorted “bass boost”.
Might have been unclear; I listen basically exclusively to spoken word stuff. Podcasts, audobooks, “raido” plays, etc.
The Airpods actually sound remarkably good and clear (and ANC helps a lot with ensuring clarity anywhere even slightly noisy) with voices, so for my uses, they sound perfectly fine.
I have a pile of Chi-Fi earbuds that absolutely destroy them in sound quality for music, but it’s very much a 99.9% of the time it’s not music situation.
I’ve never really understood the argument against headphone jacks. I can still use Bluetooth headphones with my phone. I can also use wired headphones and aux cables on my phone. Why would you want less features
I’d be fine if they gave us another USB C port, but inability to listen and charge the phone at the same time without using Bluetooth (which also needs to be charged) grinds my gears.
You can get a dongle that lets you charge and plug in headphones at the same time.
Just buy another piece of hardware which shouldn’t be necessary at all
They aren’t supporting the jack removal from what I can see, simply suggested a solution that one can easily do. No need to be hard on them for that.
There are too many dongles in my life.
Do not want
I’m not arguing against it, just not particularly arguing for it. Out of all the removed features, I’d want the IR blaster back. I can’t do that with Bluetooth.
Seems like FM/AM (did anyone do one of those?) Would be cool too
I can. Every time I forget to recharge my wireless headphones case.
Must be nice to either accept the objectively worse sound quality of wireless headphones, or be wealthy enough to afford a product that sounds almost as good as the wired version does for ten times the price and just not care about it getting stolen.
I care a moderate amount about audio quality, but my bigger gripes with Bluetooth generally involve the latency and inconvenience of switching devices (even with multipoint).
IDK about you, but in the environments where I’d use headphones with my phone are not environments where I’m capable of noticing the audio difference between bluetooth and wired.
Ten times is an extreme exaggeration unless you’re really at the bottom end of earbuds. Decent quality bluetooth headphones aren’t that much more expensive.
If I cared that much about audio quality, I wouldn’t be listening to music on my phone anyway.
I’m not sure which product you’re referring to that’s ten times the price. You can get quality monitors for around $200. I don’t know of any Bluetooth headphones that are going to match that quality at any price, but you can get close enough for the majority of purposes in the same price range. The biggest issue will be the Bluetooth audio codec and the wireless link itself (signal strength and latency), not the sound reproduction quality.
My phone plays flac. What’s poor quality about that?
The DAC between the file and the 3.5mm jack.
If you going to complain about that, never listen to a CD or any other digital format. Let me guess, only vinyl is pure?
be wealthy enough to afford a product that sounds almost as good as the wired version does for ten times the price
Or maybe just go buy a $5 adapter so you can use your wired headphones
Are you personally using a $5 adapter? They are junk.
Damn, I’d need like 100 hands to count those times myself. To each their own?
FYI “to each their own” was a phrase used on the entrance of a nazi concentration camp, same as “work sets you free”. Might wanna avoid that phrase in the future
Makes no sense. Using a commonly used phrase has nothing to do with Nazis in almost any context despite the origin. No need to start making a list of things to change because of an old connection to something bad.
Wait until the guy hears that nazis drank water and were also… breathing?
I dunno, how about the horrible privacy practices of most cars nowadays? Bluetooth allows connection, sure. It also allows data to go between the device and the car. An aux jack can’t do that.
An aux jack can’t do that.
Really? Because there are aux jacks that allow for voice and volume control. Seems to me like they could make one for “real data”.
Well, if they can, that’s interesting. But the method used to control volume and a mic are a hell of a lot simpler than transferring data. You’d need an expanded jack with extra circuitry afaik.
At that point, you’re over to a usb cable, which is where all this starts.
I mean, it’s all just electrical signals. They could simplify the data for such a transfer. The volume and mic do have an extra wire or two in them, but those are still made no bigger than those without, and the jack just has an extra ring or two on it for the connection. Most everybody is oblivious to the presence of those rings. So, I would say it’s totally possible, but is it worth it money-and-effort-wise?
Well, there’s a difference between analog and digital. So, no matter how you cut it, if the aux jack is there, making it do double duty is essentially turning it into a usb port.
You can’t really send much data at any kind of useful speed over the size and types of wiring in even the more complicated headphone wires, which usually aren’t even present in an actual aux cord that’s got a plug on each end.
The level of data transfer over Bluetooth is both higher, and is already set up to move data like the cars nowadays scrape.
So, while it would conceivably be possible to make new aux cords that are beefed up to do it, and make the jacks in both phones/tablets and head units interpret the signals, it isn’t so much whether or not it’s worth it money wise, it’s will the car owners and passengers buy it?
The connectors, as is, have a limited number of connections, poles. To change that, you have to make the plugs and jacks bigger, or radically redesign them.
From a “worth it” standpoint, they’re already taking the cheaper way out of trying to force everyone to use the Bluetooth that’s already built in. Get device makers to stop having jacks, stop putting them in cars, and the problem is solved on their end. It then falls to the consumer to find a way around that.
To be honest, I’ve used Bluetooth headphones before Android was even a thing (stupid W850i proprietary ports and all) and love them.
However, dickhead here just put my Soundcore buds through the wash so there is argument for me having a backup which this Poco F6 is now lacking.
It’s a silly divisive topic IMO which is never gonna be solved when blog authors put out articles like the above.
:(
I like rhythm games so I prefer wired.
Which ones do you play on your phone?
Rotaeno and Cytus.
It’s not us who are crazy!
It’s not crazy to want to keep using your excellent wired headphones and not rely on battery powered bullshit
I have a pair of Etymotics that i have had for 20 years, ficks no 3.5mm jack. Have a Nokia phone I use that has uSD and earphone jack.
It is when you act like adapters don’t exist
This is written by someone who’s using IEMs on a pixel, this weird obsession with jacks on the phones should have died years ago
They turn a robust connector into a fragile piece of shit, 1/2 ass’d compromise is the best description.
I’m using IEMs on a pixel too, with a jack as intended not some bullshit dongle.
God you children rage so hard on these connectors, whine harder it’s fucking funny
And in 2 months when your USB port has stopped working properly, you can keep your mouth shut.
Over a year in and no issues so far, dunno what you guys do to your USBs but all I see is whiny people with problems they themselves are causing
My daily driver is a Poco F2 Pro which has the jack port.
My car is old and I still wire it to the speakers for using Spotify and such, my gf has to use the adapter thingy for her iPhone and she can’t charge and play music at the same time, I can do that without an issue.
Too bad companies keep getting rid of ports.
A fellow F2 Pro owner here. I don’t have use for the aux port that often, but whenever I do, it’s great! Older cars, mixers, etc, everything is just plug and play like it should be.
However the notorious charging port ribbon cable seems to have broken again and this might be some of the last things I write with the phone :(
However the notorious charging port ribbon cable seems to have broken again and this might be some of the last things I write with the phone :(
Yeah, that is one annoying issue for sure.
It happened to mine as well, what I did year (years?) ago, was to use a tiny piece of electric tape in the flex to make pressure and make it to recognize the charger as well…
Still working fine after that.
If your device stops recognizing data I think it is game over though.
There are adapters with charger throughput. Or else a car phone holder with wireless charging capability that’s connected to the cigarette lighter port will do the trick.
Bluetooth audio is terrible. And 2.4 GHz doesn’t seem to be very common.
I just got a USB-C to 3.5" adapter and done. The phones listed here are either overpriced or shit.
Extremely hard disagree. Have you used a modern Sony phone before? What makes the Sony over priced compared to it’s Apple, Samsung or Google counterparts?
I’ve used older Xperia phones, not new ones. But a list price of 1400 bucks is by default overpriced. Samsungs are so full of bloat and proprietary shit, I wouldn’t touch them, ever. Plus their bootloader can’t be unlocked, which is heavily restricting my use cases.
Wouldn’t ever touch Apple devices either, and while Pixel phones are great, the price points of the new 9 Pro at around 900 bucks is high, but barely in acceptable range for me. Don’t have one (still happy with my OnePlus 10 Pro, that was about 650 bucks I think), but that’s the only high end brand you mentioned that I would consider if I were to upgrade at this point.
Problem is finding one and an unlocked bootloader so you can get rid of all the Google crap.
A15 + 5g both have a headphone jack and can be unlocked apparently. Probably the A25 versions too.
Useful advice
Edit: it appears that this is only accurate for the models not sold in North America
I’m satisfied with my https://moondroplab.com/en/products/miad01
It’s got two jacks!
This one has TWO headphone ports!
- I love the official brochure for the camera: “It’s not good but it works”.
Edit: Damn you, you edited the thing i said while i was writing it. :D
Wtf is a “pulyarbnnntelpc shell”?
Damn this thing looks awesome, having issues finding the bands it works on.
Is it not right at the top of the page?
Yep it’s right there, no clue how I missed it. I shot right to the bottom of the page looking for it, didn’t even think to check the top. Thanks
Looks pretty great, though I’d never buy it due to the lack of software support. I wish that developers making these phones would just allow easy bootloader unlock and give the device trees needed for custom roms. The community would do the rest, just like Xiaomi phones in the old days.
Most western banking apps won’t work on that phone.
F
Looks amazing!
What’s the catch?
Android 13 is listed as the OS, so absent support is my guess.
I’m running 14 on it currently
Some banking apps and stuff wont work properly, and it’s not amazing value
No mention of the DAC quality of any of the models. I’d hope the Sony one is decent.
I got the Xperia 1 VI, the headphone port seriously lacks power. It’s like half of what i’d expect from a phone. They might have bent a knee to some EU regulation. All my older cheaper phones could drive my larger cans, this one doesn’t leave much headroom.
Sony
Can’t trust them ever again. Had an XZ Premium, and they took away Miracast in an update.
And I’m still not over them taking away Linux support on the PS3…
One of the reasons I’m using an lg g8 as a Digital audio player
Is that a big concern in 2024? Devices are much more powerful and audio is cheap and easy.
You’d be surprised. Good quality compact DACs are very expensive unless the manufacturer engineers a better version.
Are they though?
This isn’t the 90’s. All it needs to do us produce an analog stream.
It depends entirely on the quality of the drivers in the headphones and the listener. Portable USB DACs for audiophiles run upwards of $200.
Yes but they have much, much , much wider margins than cell phone manufacturers. Yes, phone manufacturers will add a $0.1 DAC/AMP chip instead of a $2 because of profit margins in the 100k unit range. The actual DAC IC chips that are very good are not too expensive. The metal housings are literally more expensive. It is not expensive at all to put a good chip in there, it is all the bean counters saying that they have to increase quarterly profits.
Plus “audiophile” DACs are literally 80% snakeoil. Because listening is so subjective, they heavily rely on audiophiles’ quest for placebo effect and after-purchase self justification, both of which are a strong phenomenon. Above a FIIo E10k (literally uses a PCM5102, which is very cheap ), you get massive diminishing returns. Then above the ~150 or 200 mark, they all use very similar chips and just play around a bit with distortion on DAC/AMP stacks. Without distortion, there is no discernable difference between them.
I was a signal integrity engineer for years, we can cleanly convert signals in the MHz range (>25x faster than audio signals) and process signals in the >5GHz range. Audio is literally child’s play to have near zero noise and 99% perfect analog conversion… Even a product I am working on now where the audio is medically needed to be a certain delay and fidelity to trigger biometric measurement feedback, the DAC chip is extremely cheap compared to “audiophile” gear…
There is a reason why pretty much everyone fails a blind DAC comparison. If there were double-blind tests performed, probably like <1% of the audiophile population (that is already very low) that has extremely abnormal hearing would be able to tell DACs apart consistently above a fairly low threshold.
It isn’t so much power because that’s cheap and easy. It’s the hardware processing the data. A DAC is what decides whether or not sound is clear at any given volume, and the cheaper ones have a tendency to distort or otherwise suck as volume increases
That sounds like a dated idea. Modern hardware shouldn’t have any issues creating an audio stream.
I mean, there’s a difference in DACs. Creating one is pretty universal afaik, but they’re not all created equal.
I have an old lgg7 that sounds great out of the box. My main phone, however, is a cheap oneplus, and it’s meh, but when I plug in an external DAC, the sound improves detectably, even to my old ears.
My kid’s phone is some random nokia and sounds like crap, even through my best headphones, at high volume. Plug in the DAC, clear.
It’s a thing. The on board DAC limits how volume affects sound quality for sure, and some don’t even need the volume up to start having audible breaks and distortion.
Now, some of that is android. Crappy devices benefit from a player that has its own audio processing. You fiddle around in poweramp in particular, and you can usually get things to where it’s clear enough to be bearable at high volume. But there’s still a limit if the DAC isn’t solid. But a device that has a great DAC won’t have the issue at all unless you go crazy with the eq, which is possible on any hardware or software.
My g7, maxed out, is clear as a bell at any volume, so long as the source file is good. Same with the external DAC. Both are true regardless of using the headphone jack or usbC for output, with headphones or a system (home or auto).
I can’t speak on the xperia 1 vi, but I have the 1 iii and the DAC is great.
Now do one for phones that still have a microsd slot
Sony has both! I’m rocking a 1tb SD card at the moment that I swap into my drone and laptop for quick file transfer and it’s amazing.
Dual SIM plus MicroSD? Or either/or?
Either or. Sony phones still cost and arm, a leg and your left kidney though.
Xperia 10 is their mid-range line. Got mine unlocked for 500CAD.
Right, that’s true. My main concern is that I need to work with 3 SIM cards regularly (German, Chinese, Malaysian) and already have to either hot swap or use a spare phone, so I’d really want to see a phone that offers a standalone SD slot without compromising at least dual SIM.
I’ve just got myself one of the aftermarket eSIM add-on cards from 5ber.com which seems to be working fine, but both my Malaysian and Chinese ISP don’t offer the functionality at all just yet. Ideally I’d want to have all 3 profiles on one, then the dual SIM wouldn’t be as needed as it is now.
I don’t know any phone that has dualsim and micro SD, but Sony atleast offer a toolless sim tray, so you don’t need a needle to remove it
Motorola E32 dual sim + micro SD. My old Nokia 3.1 had it also. Both have s 3,5mm headset jack
That’s pretty cool, but I get why most manufacturers don’t make that. Do you have 2 simtrays or 1 large one?
So technically if a phone has a dual SIM slot where the second slot is shared between SD card or SIM, you can still use both SIMs and an SD card. There are little adapter ribbons that allow you to do so. One of my previous phones was a Huawei Mate 8 that I did that with.
Would that all still fit into the SIM slot, or will the card dangle outside? Sounds interesting for sure, I’ll have a look.
Currently I’m using an external SSD that I can plug into the USB-C port, but it’s a bit bulky even with a small form factor.
One of the cards dangles out, and you do sometimes have to file the SIM tray down a hair (just the tray the slot/phone is not modified at all). A lot of the ribbons have an adhesive back and just enough length to curve around the body of the phone so that it contours the phone and sticks to the back.
Since I kept my phone in a case it was essentially indistinguishable/seamless to me.
Below is a link to an example of the adapter I’m talking about.
https://www.amazon.com/Adapter-Android-Extender-Samsung-Accessory/dp/B0C5FCZY71
Moto stylus 5g has both. The review said it had bloatware, but it had way less than my S9 or z fold 4. It’s running pretty lean out of the box, with just a few moto apps you don’t really need.
I would love buying a Sony Xperia if it had a better update policy and wasn’t that expensive
The price is insane. Have never been able to own a Sony phone, which is a shame
Look into the Xperia 10 VI, their mid-range. It’s not in this list, but it does have a headphone jack.
I got my daughter one of these, she loves it, but I think its a bit large
Also have you seen how narrow and tall it is? Feels like an extended switchblade >.<
Good analogy ha ha
Back in the day the motorazr was a 1:1 for the analogy haha
Xdd. Although, not anymore. 1 VI is now 18:9
I love the aspect ratio of Sony phones, It actually allows me to use it completely with one Hand, normal phones are just a bit too wide to do so comfortably.
I’m still using a Samsung S10e and its starting to show signs of wear, but I honestly don’t like any of the replacements I’ve seen that are under $1000 and I don’t want to spend that much on a phone. And unfortunately it looks hard to find older versions too.
I tried looking into old version of the Asus ROG or Red Magic phones that still performed better than my S10e but even those were still so pricy.
S10e is great. It’s what I’ve been using as well, but it doesn’t get security updates anymore. Been using a custom rom which does get Android security updates, but there was a pretty serious SoC level security vulnerability which won’t get fixed for the S10e.
I’ll get a Pixel 8a instead. No headphone jack, slightly larger, only 1 physical sim. But can run GrapheneOS and have a long promised update period.
Yeah, that’s the part I’m worried about. I have the US snapdragon S10e, which cannot be modded to extend it’s lifespan. Which is a mistake I hope to fix with my next phone.
I’m still running an s10e as well, God I love this phone. It might be the best phone ever made, I’m not joking. I’m on my third battery and second back glass but otherwise it feels like new.
I did a little test with my dad, who has an iPhone from last year, where we would see how long a bunch of different apps would take to load. For all of them, my phone was within a second of load time (one or two was even faster). It hasn’t slowed down at all and it works flawlessly. Only problem now is it doesn’t get security updates anymore:(
Which ones have 1/4" jacks?
Some people just can’t be pleased, lol
Would that be for a direct input from an instrument, say?
nah i got some studio headphones and they got a 1/4 inch connector
I’m holding out for one with mini-XLR myself
Still mostly loving my cheap Motorola g84. Rarely use the headphone jack but it’s there. The stereo speakers in it are pretty good.
Biggest gripe is it kills Facebook messenger in the background no matter what you do. WhatsApp unaffected though.
it kills Facebook messenger in the background no matter what you do
Sounds like a feature rather than a bug! Seriously though is it something like memory usage and fb wants way more resource? Is messenger light still a thing you can try instead?
Hehe. As a small town Facebook group admin, it’s useful to have it reliable, but not the end of the world.
I don’t know for sure - my suspicion is that messenger relies on some other service which doesn’t appear in the battery optimisation UI and thus can’t be kept awake. (Opening the Facebook app causes Messenger to also wake up.)
My previous Realme phone had the same issue.
Motorola g84
G84 gang!
I have a Samsung xcover 6 pro. It has the jack + 2 sims + 1 microsd + removable battery
You too? Right on!
I honestly would have never touched a Samsung phone again had I not discovered the XCover - Pro line of phones.
I did not know about this line of phones, very interesting!
My phone doesn’t have a headphone jack but has an FM radio. It took me ages to 1) realise I needed a pass through cable without a DAC and 2) find a pass-through cable without a DAC.
Does it use the cable wire as the antenna, and that didn’t work through an external DAC?
Yes exactly, so you need a special kind of usb-c adapter that doesn’t have an external DAC.
Most adapters, even the cheapest, have a dac because a lot of phones (mostly iPhones) don’t support audio pass through mode.
the Sony would be the perfect phone if it was rootable, in the usa, and was a pixel.
I want to throw Unihertz a shout-out. I only have the JellyPhone for its novelty, but as far as devices go, it does all the things an Android phone should, even with the silly form factor. It being stock Android is a big plus as well
I can’t necessarily speak for their other phones, but if the build quality is the same, I really like what they’re doing.
Never heard of them before, but part of me wants a phone with a projector.
The Moto G Power 5g 2024 has been a great phone for me. Hard to find a phone with all the features but a headphone jack as well.
Yeah… a headphone jack is nice for charging and listening at the same time, but I’ll say it, the 10$ usb-c apple dongle does the job just fine and covers 99% of use cases. Plus it can also be used on devices with shitty DACs because the dongle is essentially one and it’s pretty good as well
I was disappointed Android Authority didn’t list the iPhone…
