True wireless earbuds don't necessarily have to end up as electronic waste when their batteries reach the end of their lifespan. Fairphone demonstrates this with the Fairbuds 2, whose batteries can be easily replaced. The earbuds also offer active noise cancellation and support for Sony LDAC.
Can we get back the headphone jacks instead?
Its over. The jack is dead
I don’t care, I still won’t use overpriced earbuds with subpar converters and speakers, just because techbros really liked an anime cyberpunk girl art who happened to have them, and then reposted it to 9gag million times with the text “Apple needs to make this now!”.
Gotta defend wireless earbuds a bit. They do add a lot of convenience for everyday activities. I’d never want to go back to wired for running, the cable flapping around is just too annoying. I also like them more for commuting and (grocery) shopping, I just kept getting tangled up when putting a bag or backpack on and off.
But nobody is forced to use them. If you’re on a budget, get an adaptor that isn’t clunky. For audiophile needs, adaptors, different cables, mobile DACs or dedicated music players are usually used, the latter usually with headphone jacks.
I used to share this opinion but grew out of it tbh.
From an engineering perspective headphone jacks are: a) a huge waste of space for no real functionality as the function is integrated in USB-C or lightning.
b) an unnecessary weak point in water- and dustproofing.
If you need an audio jack, specialised models still have it or a dedicated android audio player (fiio make great ones) will serve you better.
I say this as an audiophile btw.
I wouldn’t miss the audio jack, if phones had two usb-c ports, one for charging and one for audio. But all adapter I tried that allowed charging the phone while listening to audio where very flimsy and/or unhandy.
I just would like not every device to have is own built-in or custom battery. Them being changeable is good, but I would also live if we start having a smaller set of standardized formats.
There were water- and dustproofed jacks.
There are, but they’re even more bulky, and they are waterproof in the sense that the water wouldn’t damage the device, but the port itself is still vulnerable, and very much so. Unless it has a flap, but no regular phone used that ever.
I’m OK with flaps.
That’s what she said.
There are several models that still have it. When I bought my most recent phone it was one of my personal requirements. I think there were 6 or 7 models to choose from that were all essentially the same as any other modern phone, but had a 3.5 jack. That was a while ago, but there are still some new models rocking it. I use it all the time.
I have a cheap, perfectly serviceable 2026 Motorola that has one.