I’m fine with only usb-c (I have never required charging while listening music). What I lack is a nice HiFi pair of wired headphones that go directly, without any adapter… And Bluetooth is not reliable, apparently, for HiFi audio…
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
For the crazy people like me who won’t let it go
Your not crazy, just underserved by capture capitalism
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.
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
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
You’re a daft one :)
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.
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.
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).
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.
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.
I like rhythm games so I prefer wired.
Which ones do you play on your phone?
Rotaeno and Cytus.
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
It’s not us who are crazy!
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.
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.
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.
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!
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.
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.
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
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
Also have you seen how narrow and tall it is? Feels like an extended switchblade >.<
Xdd. Although, not anymore. 1 VI is now 18:9
Good analogy ha ha
Back in the day the motorazr was a 1:1 for the analogy haha
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”?
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?
I stopped caring about the headphone jack when every pair I used, the wire eventually wore out. Having to buy more every couple months was getting old. I’d rather recharge my Airpods every 4 or 5 hours for 45 mins than continue buying wired headphones repeatedly for enternity.
But that’s just my personal experience. I use headphones at work, so obviously with all the constant moving around, it was hard on the wires. I don’t wish for the jack to be removed but I will never use it again for my purposes.
the Sony would be the perfect phone if it was rootable, in the usa, and was a pixel.
Xperia 1 VI works in USA, just not with all bands and carriers
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…
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
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.
Is that a big concern in 2024? Devices are much more powerful and audio is cheap and easy.
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).
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.
