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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

#381

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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?

>need? "Need" doesn't factor into it. People want the latest and greatest.

People want the cheapest and easiest.

Re: Best Smartphones That Still Have a Headphone Jack

#382

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To clarify, I mean for audio. For MIDI it works well enough most of the time. I think note-on/off messages are 3 or 4 bytes, though, which is quite a bit less of a chunk to buffer and verify or whatever Bluetooth does

Note-on/offs are 3 bytes exactly [1] and take 320μs to send [2], but I'm not sure what kind of overhead Bluetooth adds. [1]: http://www.music-software-development.com/midi-tutorial.html [2] https://www.cs.cmu.edu/~music/cmsip/readings/davids-midi-spe...

Thanks, gotcha.

Half byte for on/off header, half for channel, byte for the note/pitch, byte for the velocity.

This snippet probably xmits even faster at higher bps.

Re: Best Smartphones That Still Have a Headphone Jack

#383

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 use the moto G line myself and the only thing I am dissatisfied about is Motorola's constant refusal to make use of it's 64bit hardware, forcing the OS to run in 32-bit mode. Some games (Pokemon Masters for example) are simply unavailable because of this, and Google has already deprecated 32bit native code.

Never noticed. Loyal Moto g due to chop for flashlight and minimal crapware. Headphone jack has failed on last on a d starting to on this one though.

Re: Best Smartphones That Still Have a Headphone Jack

#384

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The pixel has a small profile and is pure Android and a flagship phone

It's insanely expensive though: "from €899". Also quite a bit bigger than SE, although not as much as some I guess. I wasn't exaggerating when I said I have 9 apps installed: Couchsurfing, Fastmail, Telegram, Tinder, Revolut, Viewranger, WhatsApp, Google Maps, Firefox. That'll be €100/app!

The pixel 3a is quite cheap (comparatively), fairly small, and got great reviews.

Re: Best Smartphones That Still Have a Headphone Jack

#385

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 2…

that's usually my thought process as well, and also that high end phones are generally using this year's newest components while the mid range ones are using parts from previous years to dave money. two years from now the high end phone you bought might still be able to hold its own while you will have trouble selling the mid range

Re: Best Smartphones That Still Have a Headphone Jack

#386

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The cost of a headphone jack at scale is a few cents. I'm pretty sure it's less about the cost and more about size/thickness, with moisture sealing as possibly a secondary concern. If you say that the battery is a little bigger because the internals of the phone didn't need to accommodate a headphone jack, does that make you feel any better? How often do you use not-your-regular-headphones (which would just have dong…

Its infuriating to me that Sony led the way with high end waterproof phones. They had a relatively stock Android experience and pretty much perfected the water proof phone with an open headphone jack. Then Apple came out with a phone without a headphone jack and they just dropped the head phone jack from all of their worthwhile phones. I was a regular Sony buyer for years because of them being waterproof, but relucta…

same. was mainly buying sony phones for the last few years but the xz1 compact was the last one. they just lost the plot after that. now I've moved to Samsung and the s10e which is too big for my liking but it's the only phone around today that ticks all the boxes I want

Re: Best Smartphones That Still Have a Headphone Jack

#387

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.

I consider a headphone jack mandatory for two main reasons. First, wireless earphones don't have adequate battery life (not to mention that the last thing I need is yet another thing that requires daily charging). Second, after trying out a variety of bluetooth earphones, I've yet to find one that doesn't give me periodic problems (dropped connections, etc.) Since Bluetooth doesn't offer anything that I consider adva…

when you are able to share your bt audio with someone sitting next to you like you can with 3.5mm (ie sharing one of the buds or using a splitter) then Bluetooth will be ready. when batteries are good enough to last a few weeks or can change up instantly then I could see myself switching.

for the moment I'm going to try out using a bt receiver (just bought a fiio btr3 a few days ago) and when the battery goes i can just switch back to 3.5mm instead of having to wait half an hour for bt headphones to charge back up which is such a daft idea when you consider the price of them

Re: Best Smartphones That Still Have a Headphone Jack

#388

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.

I used to be like that about physical keyboards on smartphones, but I gave up that battle years ago. Same with headphone jacks. All I want now is more than one USB input! That works as headphone jack anyway.

I used to be one of those keyboard fanatics until i realised swipe typing was much faster, so it was an actual improvement overall.

with bluetooth it's not a great comparison since the only improvement is that you don't have to deal with annoying cables anymore but everything else is a step back:

they cost more. you have to charge them. the battery will degrade over time to a point where they will be unuseable while headphones from 20 years ago will work just fine. even if the battery lasts you might run into compatability issues at some point in the future (different bt versions etc). they drain more battery from your phone. they have connection issues. they are awkward to pair to new devices. you cant share your music with someone sitting next to you.

Re: Best Smartphones That Still Have a Headphone Jack

#389

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.

I sometimes can’t believe that after 3 years people are still feeling hurt about this thing. I mean, go ahead and vote with your wallet but wow, what a hill to choose to die on! I’ve been through the obsolescence of floppy disks, cassette tapes, optical media/drives, DB9 serial ports, parallel printer ports, composite video, RCA audio jacks, VGA and countless other display output jacks, yet this silly 3.5mm headphone…

except you are ignoring the fact that the newer technologies we're drastically better. usb drives were far greater than floppy disks. cds were better then cassettes. Bluetooth is better than 3.5mm in a few small ways but inferior in every other way.

there was no reason why phone manufacturers couldn't leave the headphone jack alone until Bluetooth was ready but it was mainly a money grab to force customers to buy their bt headphones

Re: Best Smartphones That Still Have a Headphone Jack

#390

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's insanely expensive though: "from €899". Also quite a bit bigger than SE, although not as much as some I guess. I wasn't exaggerating when I said I have 9 apps installed: Couchsurfing, Fastmail, Telegram, Tinder, Revolut, Viewranger, WhatsApp, Google Maps, Firefox. That'll be €100/app!

The pixel 3a is quite cheap (comparatively), fairly small, and got great reviews.

The Pixel 3a has a 5.6" screen while the iPhone SE has a 4.0" one, that's not even comparable.
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