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Best Smartphones That Still Have a Headphone Jack

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Re: Best Smartphones That Still Have a Headphone Jack

#181

Post by shkkmo »

Kerrick wrote: post #154
magduf wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because people don't want to fuck around with a stupid dongle to have a feature that the phone should have had in the first place. Dongles get lost, and you also can't charge the phone and use the dongle at the same time. Maybe you don't think it's a big deal, but when the asking price of the device is $1k, any little annoyance like that is a legitimate deal-breaker: for that much money, it should have everything, in…

I have pretty much never charged my phone and used it at the same time. The cord is too short, and cords that are long enough are unwieldy. Plus, the cord sticks out right where my hand wants to hold the phone. Is this something people actually do in any situation except low-power emergencies?

Yes, many people do it all the time.

Re: Best Smartphones That Still Have a Headphone Jack

#182

Post by iamnotacrook »

stuff4ben wrote: post #146
wilsonnb3 wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

but, why? I sincerely don't understand why the headphone jack is the hill that so many people choose to die on. The $9 lightning to 3.5mm dongle has worked perfectly for me, as has my USB-c to 3.5mm dongle.

Yeah, I don't get the headphone jack obsession either. Bluetooth has been perfect for me and frees me from the cord. I can't stand tangled up cords that tickle my neck as I'm trying to listen to music.

Bluetooth is perfect for you if you like going back to pre 1985 audio quality. Some of us like CD quality, and it's kind of funny that in 2019 the only way to get close to that (without a headphone socket, anyway), is using aptx-hd supported phones/headphones.

Re: Best Smartphones That Still Have a Headphone Jack

#183

Post by yladiz »

stuff4ben wrote: post #177
schwap wrote: post #157

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, sure sounds like fun doing the entire bluetooth "oh, let me pair, wait it's not coming up in my list, maybe you need to unpair first..." etc. dance over and over instead of just swapping out a cable in a second.

Tangled cords, frayed and broken cables, finding room for those cables...yeah no thanks. And maybe you need better devices, never a problem on my iphones. Just pop in my airpods and just works. Or start my truck and it just works. Or switch on my bluetooth speaker and it just works. Seriously, bluetooth has evolved to the point that wires don't make sense to me anymore.

Many cars disable Bluetooth pairing while the car is in motion, so you couldn't even "be the DJ" if your phone was not already paired with your car/truck beforehand. It's fine if it's just you and you are pairing just your phone, but if your friends wanna participate on a road trip and just want to use their phone it could be a problem.

Re: Best Smartphones That Still Have a Headphone Jack

#184

Post by phreack »

tablethnuser wrote: post #20

I've been using the budget Moto G+ line for the past four years. I can upgrade my phone every year around Black Friday and get the latest model for sub $200. The older phones still work well and get handed down to my less tech savvy family members. I'm not really sure what people are paying for when they get those $800+ beasts for phones. When I use a friend's I can tell they are higher quality; either they feel more…

My daily driver for years has been a Moto Z Play gen 1, with a battery mod. It's robust as hell, I have literally never had the battery run out, and I can go two days or sometimes three if I'm being careful without doing a full charge which is pretty much my top concern on phones. It has a good enough camera for my needs and a headphone jack. When it's time to change, I'm totally staying on this line.

Re: Best Smartphones That Still Have a Headphone Jack

#185

Post by Lio »

JohnFen wrote: post #116
tablethnuser wrote: post #20

I've been using the budget Moto G+ line for the past four years. I can upgrade my phone every year around Black Friday and get the latest model for sub $200. The older phones still work well and get handed down to my less tech savvy family members. I'm not really sure what people are paying for when they get those $800+ beasts for phones. When I use a friend's I can tell they are higher quality; either they feel more…

> I think more people should try out budget Android lines. If I were willing to stay in the Android ecosystem, this is what I'd do. But I'm not (nor am I willing to go with iOS). It's just become too difficult, painful, and uncertain to secure them anymore. Instead, when I need to replace my current (ancient) smartphone, I'm falling back to a feature phone combined with carrying a pocket computer that just runs plain…

I’d do the same or move to something like a Librem 5 except that my iphone is a useful platform for lots of little proprietary utility software.

Eg Shimano have a utility for updating the firmware on my bike (oh what a time to be alive...) they have software for doing that from Linux.

Keeping an old older iPhone around just to cover that is useful. Not sure what I’ll do when it dies or looses support.

Re: Best Smartphones That Still Have a Headphone Jack

#186

Post by baddox »

navigatesol wrote: post #171
chaostheory wrote: post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I'm not really sure what people are paying for when they get those $800+ beasts for phones. The main reason for us is the camera. We do not own a separate standalone camera anymore. You're not going to be able to take a time machine to take better pictures of the past, which is also why we keep replacing our phones every year. Also I prefer Apple's walled garden especially for the less tech savvy members of my exte…

> The main reason for us is the camera. We do not own a separate standalone camera anymore. The next question then, is: how good of a camera does the average person need? I'd fathom the vast majority of people viewing pictures are rapidly flipping through them on some app like Instagram. How much difference does the latest camera make for the average user, really?

It's unnecessarily tricky to talk about what an average person "needs." It's pretty tough to justify any cell phone features as a "need" except perhaps for emergency phone calls (and yet, 20 years ago it seems most people didn't "need" that either).

High-end phone cameras are just really really nice, and they do tend to receive regular improvements that are noticeable to people who are interested in photography or just pay close attention. In 2006 I paid $325 for a Canon PowerShot SD870 IS that was pretty nice at the time, and almost any photo I took on that camera would look noticeably bad today compared to flagship smartphone cameras.

Re: Best Smartphones That Still Have a Headphone Jack

#187

Post by IkmoIkmo »

tablethnuser wrote: post #20

I've been using the budget Moto G+ line for the past four years. I can upgrade my phone every year around Black Friday and get the latest model for sub $200. The older phones still work well and get handed down to my less tech savvy family members. I'm not really sure what people are paying for when they get those $800+ beasts for phones. When I use a friend's I can tell they are higher quality; either they feel more…

Great points, although I would want to add a bit of nuance from my personal experience.

One thing that often gets overlooked in pricing is depreciation. Flagship models tend to keep their value quite well, whereas budget models depreciate to next to nothing.

Take the iPhone X, launched 2 years ago, used it's around $570 today, versus the $999 it launched at.

Meanwhile, a $300 phone tends to drop down to $100 on the 2nd hand market two years later.

It just doesn't hold value very well, for one because budget phones become so much better, and secondly because there's no marketing or natural demand for 2 year old budget phones, and stores themselves discount 1st hand versions of these phones to extreme extents 2 years later. Who here is googling to get a good deal on a second-hand Moto G5? A $300 phone 2.5yo phone that's $50 used today, and $150 new.

So after depreciation, the difference between a $1000 flagship and a $300 budget model isn't $700, rather it's the cost of depreciation $430 vs $200 (or $230 more).

That $220 isn't nothing, but it's $9.50 a month on a 2-year basis. If you compare that to say a Netflix account, a data plan, cloud storage subscription, Spotify, or two Starbucks coffees a month... $9.50 a month extra to carry a flagship phone is pretty doable for most people. And you get a top-notch flagship phone.

Not saying everyone should skip budget phones, but it's not as painful a financial decision as it may seem.

Re: Best Smartphones That Still Have a Headphone Jack

#188

Post by baddox »

DanTheManPR wrote: post #167
chuckgreenman wrote: post #18

I'm a single-issue voter when it comes to cell phones - if it doesn't have a headphone jack, I won't be buying it.

What I don't get is: it's not an either/or proposition, it's not like you have to choose between having wired and wireless headphones. I use my Airpods on my android phone, and they're pretty nice for when I'm doing housework and working around the shop. When I'm at work, I plug in my plantronics headset for conference calls, and my regular cans when I'm listening to music. Airpods don't have the stamina to keep up w…

But your dichotomy isn't a hard and fast rule either. I use AirPods for everyday commuting and phone/video calls. I also do a lot of wilderness backpacking, and then I carry EarPods with a Lightning connector for when I want to listen to music before I sleep (because they're lighter, cheaper, simpler, probably more durable, and it's one less thing to charge).

If you find it such a hassle to use compatible headphones are carry an adapter, of course there's nothing wrong with you choosing for phone purchases accordingly. But I think it's pretty clear that most people either never run into the hassle at all, or aren't bothered by the fact that they need to choose compatible headphones or carry an adapter.

Re: Best Smartphones That Still Have a Headphone Jack

#189

Post by baddox »

magduf wrote: post #95
wilsonnb3 wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

but, why? I sincerely don't understand why the headphone jack is the hill that so many people choose to die on. The $9 lightning to 3.5mm dongle has worked perfectly for me, as has my USB-c to 3.5mm dongle.

Because people don't want to fuck around with a stupid dongle to have a feature that the phone should have had in the first place. Dongles get lost, and you also can't charge the phone and use the dongle at the same time. Maybe you don't think it's a big deal, but when the asking price of the device is $1k, any little annoyance like that is a legitimate deal-breaker: for that much money, it should have everything, in…

This argument is circular because you're already assuming that "the phone should have had it in the first place." If you assume that, then you don't need to continue to argue for why the phone should have had the feature.

Re: Best Smartphones That Still Have a Headphone Jack

#190

Post by zeroDivisible »

lovehashbrowns wrote: post #134

I'm pretty excited for the ROG Phone 2. I honestly hate the look of it; it's far too "gamer-y" for me. I mean, it makes sense since it's a gamer product. But everything else about it looks great. High refresh rate for the screen, double USB-C ports, really good battery life. And it comes with a headphone jack! If it has water resistance, that's what I'm gonna go for. Otherwise, I guess I'm gonna keep my Note9 for a w…

I didn't hear about ROG Phone 2 and it has some features which I really like, but I think the killer for me was lack of Micro SD and a better camera.

If only there would be a flagship phone which has all: an awesome camera (I snap loads of photos, the whole "best camera is the one you have with yourself" mantra), big battery and a Micro SD slot, it would be an instant buy for me.

So far I've been upgrading my Samsung Galaxy from 2 -> 4 -> 8+ as that was the closest I could find to what I wanted from the phone, but I'm happy to change to any other brand.

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