Is the Headphone Jack Back?

-
Pixel 3a

It took “courage” from Apple to start us down the headphone jack-less path in 2016. Motorola wasn’t far behind them. Google followed their leads in 2017’s Pixel 2 by suggesting USB-C and digital audio were better audio. OnePlus joined the party in 2018 after ribbing competitors for years for ditching 3.5mm ports. All signs from the past three years suggested that the 3.5mm port was only a couple of random sightings away from becoming extinct. Something seems to have changed, though.

Is the headphone jack back?

For 2019, we’ve seen a lot of headphone jacks. Samsung’s entire Galaxy S10 line-up has them. The LG G8 has one, with a Quad DAC to boot. Huawei’s P30 has one (the P30 Pro does not). The mid-range Pixel 3a and 3a XL have them. And now the Moto Z4 has one, even as Motorola was one of the original 3.5mm killers. So far in 2019, it’s more rare to not have a headphone jack than it is to have one.

When the initial cuts began to happen, we heard a lot of excuses reasons for doing so. Companies needed to make room for more battery or they wanted to trim bezels, so they left out the headphone hole. If we were going to get to an all-display world with the slickest designs, something was going to be removed and it happened to be the 3.5mm port. But as we have seen in 2019, those reasons weren’t exactly true.

The Galaxy S10 line is as all-display as it gets, with almost zero bezel and the biggest batteries for the Galaxy S to date. The Moto Z4 is still stupid thin, with its largest display, and a whopping 3600mAh battery. The Pixel 3a and 3a XL have bigger batteries than the Pixel 3 and 3 XL. All of these phones found room.

And look, Google admitted when they released the Pixel 3a that headphone jacks are important because “a lot of people [already] have headphones.” They acknowledged that flexibility for customers is a good thing and that forcing you to go out and buy additional digital headphones (probably) isn’t necessary. In other words, the space excuse was never a real excuse, they all just wanted to match Apple’s courage.

So is the headphone jack back? We’ll have to wait and see what happens in the 2nd half of 2019, but you can almost bet with certainty that the Galaxy Note 10 will have a 3.5mm port. Will the Pixel 4? That might be the true decider over whether or not we can point fingers at all of these companies and say, “Hah ha, you were wrong.”



Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Honor 20 Pro is Now Available in 14 Countries

-
Image
The Honor 20 was off to a really rocky start with the controversial U.S.A. ban on HUAWEI. While the future of the phone was initially unclear, the planned launch of the phone is now in full swing. As this phone’s complicated launch slowly starts to be available around the world, here are all the places where you can get an Honor 20 Pro.   Country Availability Date Selling Channel Russia 2019/8/2 DNS . MTS, GB 2019/8/1 Amazon.uk , CPW , o2, H3G France 2019/8/22 Amazon, Boulanger, Cdiscount, Darty, FREE, Fnac. Orange, SFR. Offline [HONOR Shop Paris & Lyon] German 2019/7/21 MSD, 1&1 mobile, Amazon , Mediamarket/ phonehouse Netherlands 2019/7/31 bol.com , Belsimpel Czechia 2019/8/15 Alza Finland 2019/8/13 ELsia DNa Poland 2019/8/8 RTV EURO AGD , X-Kom Malaysia 2019/8/15 HiHonor , Shopee . Offline [all HONOR stores in Malaysia] Saudi Arabia 2019/7/31 Pre-sell 2019/8/6 First day sale HiHonor Egypt 2019/7/29 Pre-s...
Read more

Motorola’s foldable Razr phone may be announced before year’s end

-
While Samsung’s saga with the Galaxy Fold appears to finally be coming to an end , there are other foldables destined to be released soon. The Huawei Mate X is the other big name, but it has been delayed a couple of times as well. The other foldable device that we’ve heard about a few times is the rumored Motorola Razr reboot, and a new report claims an announcement is coming this year still. Earlier this year, reports suggested Motorola would launch its foldable phone this summer. That time has come and gone without a peep from Motorola, but a new report claims it’s still coming this year. This information comes from a person close to the company speaking to CNET . It’s unlikely that the device will actually be sold this year, but we should at least see the device before 2020. Motorola has already confirmed that they are working on a foldable smartphone. The “Razr” name was also confirmed by a Bluetooth certification. We exclusively reported on the specifications of the device ,...
Read more

Behind Dynamic System Updates in Android Q: How Google is using Project Treble to improve future Android releases

-
Image
Alongside the release of Android 8.0 Oreo, Google unveiled Project Treble : a major rearchitecting in the way the Android OS framework and the vendor HALs and Linux kernel communicate. Treble is a major initiative designed to reduce Android platform version and security patch fragmentation , and all Android-branded devices launching with Android Pie are required to support Project Treble. OEMs and vendors test Treble compatibility by booting a Generic System Image (GSI)—a pure stock build of Android from AOSP—and passing the Vendor Test Suite (VTS) and Compatibility Test Suite-on-Generic System Image (CTS-on-GSI). The GSI has proven useful in not only allowing software engineers working for OEMs test Treble compatibility, but it has also opened the door for a large custom ROM community on XDA. For the Android Q release, Google wants to make GSIs useful for another group: app developers. Since the first stable release and source code drop of any given Android platform release usual...
Read more