• Admiral Patrick@dubvee.org
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    6 months ago

    I don’t know much about Moondrop’s line of phones, but I do love that Apple removed the headphone jack, Samsung naturally copied them, and Moondrop comes along and says “you know what? We’ll add two headphone jacks”.

    Respect.

    (I absolutely still use the 3.5mm jack)

    • orangeboats@lemmy.world
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      6 months ago

      I still don’t quite get why some people are defending manufacturers which remove the headphone jack on their phones…

      3.5mm jacks don’t cost much materially. Removing it doesn’t bring any benefit at all, and you are forced to buy a bluetooth headphone or a Type-C-to-3.5mm dongle on top of that.

      • smeg@feddit.uk
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        6 months ago

        I don’t think it’s about the cost of the 3.5mm jack itself, it’s about the space it takes up. “Thinner and lighter” as a goal means removing chunky things they don’t think are necessary. Also waterproofing maybe?

        • orangeboats@lemmy.world
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          6 months ago

          I am not so sure about the waterproofability of headphone jacks, but does it benefit to make phones even “thinner and lighter”?

          • T156@lemmy.world
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            6 months ago

            Completely fine. There are multiple phones that have been out with waterproofing and headphone jacks.

            It’s not that much more difficult to waterproof than the charge port.

          • smeg@feddit.uk
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            6 months ago

            I’ve got no idea of the legitimacy of the claim, it’s just what the manufacturers claim. Likewise, they assume people want “thinner and lighter”, presumably because that’s what Steve Jobs said. It’s all just trying to make the devices appeal to the mass market.

            • Chee_Koala@lemmy.world
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              6 months ago

              They don’t even assume that anymore. If you look at the mean dimensions of sold phones in NL over the last 7 years, you’ll see that the ‘thinnest’ year is already behind us. Less then 6/7mm just becomes unwieldy for a lot of hands, and the sold phones dimensions reflect that.

          • catloaf@lemm.ee
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            6 months ago

            Obviously. If you can free up thickness and weight in one area, you can increase things like battery size, either alone or to compensate for a higher-power processor or something.

            • orangeboats@lemmy.world
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              6 months ago

              I don’t think the battery argument is convincing enough to me unfortunately, since it’s more likely that the recent increase in battery capacity is due to battery chemistry improvements rather than increased physical size.

              I mean, I have two similar sized phones from different eras. One had 3000mAh, another had 5000mAh. They both include a headphone jack.

      • Andromxda 🇺🇦🇵🇸🇹🇼@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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        6 months ago

        3.5mm jacks don’t cost much materially

        They take up quite a lot of space (for a phone) that could otherwise be used for a larger battery. I’ll happily take a few hundred mAh of battery life over a headphone jack. I find bluetooth headphones much more comfortable to use anyway. But I understand that some people prefer wired headphones.

        • T156@lemmy.world
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          6 months ago

          But that space usually isn’t. No company would make a battery with a tiny little protrusion where the headphone jack once was. That’d cost a lot more, and make it a lot more fragile.

          They’d be more likely to leave it empty, or fit something else in that space, like a third speaker.

              • Andromxda 🇺🇦🇵🇸🇹🇼@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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                6 months ago

                Just look at the inside any modern smartphone, it’s full of battery and other stuff, basically no empty space. The iPhone 7 was the first generation without a headphone jack, it still used the old case design though. Look at the iPhone X which was completely redesigned, it’s just marginally larger than the iPhone 6/6s/7/8 (they all use the same case design) but has a much larger battery. They went from 7.45Wh (1960mAh) on the iPhone 7

                to 10.35Wh (2716mAh) on the iPhone X.

                • EddoWagt@feddit.nl
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                  6 months ago

                  I feel like the bottom phone there looks more empty than the top, it looks like there is still some room at the top and bottom there.

                  But anyhow, they’ve removed the headphone jacks from iPads as well and those certainly have some room left

        • stardust@lemmy.ca
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          6 months ago

          Space seems overblown when Samsung ultras fit in an entire spen that takes up way more space, and most phones do not have a stylus that can be stored internally. So I don’t buy the excuse of space. Always has seemed like more a company excuse to sell accessories.

      • ahal@lemmy.ca
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        6 months ago

        I don’t defend manufacturers that do this or anything, but personally I hate cords and want to go wireless for everything. Of course a headphone jack doesn’t prevent me from doing that, but given the choice of two identical phones except for a 3.5mm jack, I’m choosing the one without.

        Why have a hole that I’m never going to use that can trap dust, allow water in, take up a tiny bit of space and make the phone look less appealing (to me)?

        • orangeboats@lemmy.world
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          6 months ago

          I don’t see how the jack can make a phone less appealing? 99% of the time you’ll be looking at the screen, you’re not going to see the headphone jack.

          Though, perhaps it’s because of lifestyle differences between countries (I am not American), I simply cannot imagine not using the 3.5mm jack ever. I am still using AUX on my car radio.

          • ahal@lemmy.ca
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            6 months ago

            I guess I just find a closed chassis more sleek or futuristic? I fully admit this is pretty dumb and it’s definitely not a significant factor in my phone purchasing decisions.

            Fwiw I’m not American either. But like I said, I hate cords of any kind. I’d probably buy a phone without a USB port if not for the fact I occasionally need to charge at other people’s houses :p

            • 800XL@lemmy.world
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              6 months ago

              I hate having cords too. For me at least no matter what pair of wireless headphones I buy, they never last as long as I need them to and when they die I am never around a place to leave them to charge.

              Another thing is that my phone always tries to figure out what bluetooth device it thinks I want to pair with and it is wrong 90% of the time.

              It also thinks that if I’ve been away from a bluetooth device for awhile that when I come back I want to switch from my headphones to that device and it is wrong 100% of the time.

              Cords are irritating and I can’t tell you how many times the cord has caught on something walking by and ripped the headphones out of my ears, but it still way less annoying than bluetooth.

      • Carighan Maconar@lemmy.world
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        6 months ago

        I still don’t quite get why some people are defending manufacturers which remove the headphone jack on their phones…

        Not defending, just utterly couldn’t care either way. 🤷

        • orangeboats@lemmy.world
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          6 months ago

          I am trying to. My current phone has a headphone jack. But I fear that the possibility of getting a high-end phone with a headphone jack is diminishing.

        • Yttra@lemmy.world
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          6 months ago

          Cool, just make alternatives actually available in a country, and also get them onto mobile carrier whitelists. Easy.

          (Looking at Asus)

    • Thorny_Insight@lemm.ee
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      6 months ago

      It also made it so much easier to choose a new device. Requirements: headphone jack and a removable battery. Results: 1

      Even Fairphone made themselves irrelevant to me by dropping the headphone jack. What an absolutely stupid decision to make especially for a device like that.

      • viking@infosec.pub
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        6 months ago

        I’m using USB-C to 3.5" adapters, they cost next to nothing and allow me to use a much wider pool of phones. Some even come with a USB-C passthrough so you can charge it or connect other stuff simultaneously.

        • Thorny_Insight@lemm.ee
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          6 months ago

          I believe in voting with your wallet. Giving money to companies that practice anti-consumer behaviour sends them the signal that you’re okay with what they’re doing. I’m not okay with it so I’m sticking to my principles.

          I never bought a device with non-removable battery either and now thanks to EU it seems that I don’t ever need to either.

          I also bought an older model MacBook because it had a better keyboard aswell as HDMI port and SD-card reader. Now the newest models have them again because enough people like me refused to buy the inferior models.

        • Thorny_Insight@lemm.ee
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          6 months ago

          Yeah. XCover 6Pro is the only device that met my requirements and is the one I went with.

        • kerrigan778@lemmy.world
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          6 months ago

          Oh that’s what they did with the Active series, thank goodness I thought they’d stopped doing them.

          • aluminium@lemmy.world
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            6 months ago

            No not really. The active series were S line phones repackaged into a more rugged shell. With the same high end cameras and specs. The Xcover line always were mid to low end devices.

      • Ilandar@aussie.zone
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        6 months ago

        Mediatek devices generally have really bad custom ROM support. Historically their chipsets had a reputation for being less efficient, too.

        • RBG@discuss.tchncs.de
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          6 months ago

          Add to that its not even the current android version on it. This company does not sound like they will give you updates so a bad availability of custom ROMs is really limiting.

  • kalpol@lemmy.world
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    6 months ago

    I’ve always wondered why no one thought of redesigning the jack. Have it just be form-fitted outside contacts, with magnetic adhesion to hold the plug in place. There isn’t any real reason it has to be a socket.

    The reason is of course the masses just use Bluetooth, or deal with the dongle, because they absolutely must have an iPhone.

    • Solar Bear@slrpnk.net
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      6 months ago

      Have it just be form-fitted outside contacts, with magnetic adhesion to hold the plug in place.

      I actually really like this idea. If we’re breaking backwards compatibility anyways, let’s do something useful with it. This form factor was invented in the 1950s. I’m sure we can do something better now.

      We need to move away from everything having a battery anyways. Wireless headphones were a mistake. Now people are walking around with 4-6 batteries on them at all times. Phone, laptop, earbuds, earbud case, battery backup, smart watch. Batteries aren’t great for the environment, not to mention they typically condemn something to being tech waste in a few short years. We need to significantly rethink this model.

    • LazaroFilm@lemmy.world
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      6 months ago

      Apple tried to replace it with Lightning connector. They even were selling EarPods with a Lightning connector. Obviously it was a total disaster.

    • catloaf@lemm.ee
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      6 months ago

      Like Apple’s magsafe? Not unreasonable, but you’d still need an adapter. I think the biggest issue would be having magnets small enough for the rim of the phone, but still strong enough to keep secure while moving around, but also won’t interfere with other magnetic components like the speakers or compass.

      That takes time and effort (i.e. money). Or they could just omit all that stuff and tell people to use the Bluetooth radio they’re going to put in the phone anyway.

    • Taleya@aussie.zone
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      6 months ago

      My ol’ sony discman actually has a flat printed pcb connector for earphones.

      Issue is that redesigns get proprietary real fast

    • Olap@lemmy.world
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      6 months ago

      The jack connector has a really long history, back to the telegraph. The simplicity, the dependability, the interoperability, the lack of it falling out, or needing magnets, or who knows means it will be very tough to replace. And it has evolved too, it used to be a ball end, they have switched sizes, added channels

      https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phone_connector_(audio)

    • UckyBon@lemmy.world
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      6 months ago

      Actually the DAC in the Apple Dongle (even with how hideous it looks) is quite good (for the price) compared to the DACs powering the minijack ports on mobile phones. Let alone other external DACs.

      If you’d care at all about audio quality you’d at least know that right? Instead of trying to shit on a product you don’t even own, maybe learn something about audio?

      Edit: the comment quality here has rapidly decreased to Reddit hive mind unga bunga “I hate everything I don’t own and have no experience or knowledge about”-levels.

      Most mobile phone mini jacks have horrible DACs running them.

      Edit 2: Damn fake noob audiophiles walking around here lol. Show me 1 article where the Apple Dongle performs under its price. Losers.

      Edit 3: Ah Android sub, of course it’s gonna be full of hate. I thought this had something to do with audio or tech. My bad, you Google chumps.

      • lolcatnip@reddthat.com
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        6 months ago

        Edit 3: Ah Android sub, of course it’s gonna be full of hate. I thought this had something to do with audio or tech. My bad, you Google chumps.

        You realize most Android phones also don’t have a headphone jack, right? This isn’t an Android vs iPhone issue.

      • woelkchen@lemmy.world
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        6 months ago

        I have the Apple dongle. Can’t comment on the audio quality, though. The audio output is way too silent.