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Ifixit gives fairphone 5 a 10/10 on repairability and maintanence
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this post was submitted on 12 Dec 2023
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As well as a 5.25" floppy disc drive and betamax, you call that a phone?!? No thank you, I'll stick with my x-phone https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=9-nezImUP0w
People complaining about 3.5mm jacks remind of the people who complained about how the iMac G3 didn't have a 3.5" floppy drive. At first yeah it was weird to leave it out, but it's been 9 years since the first smartphone launched without a 3.5mm jack (the OPPO R5 in 2014).
If you want ancient tech then your options will be limited.
Ancient tech? Looks at literally every laptop and desktop sold.
Headphone jack removal is anti-consumer and any device without one is missing a key component. Why would I buy a device missing a key component?
Plus you can find wired headphones EVERYWHERE. Walk into any gas station and pick up replacements for $10. Sure they may not be the best quality, but they work. Also, no charging, just plug them into your device. Also, no setup, just plug it in.
I can't tell you if any of my laptops have a 3.5mm jack. If they do, I'd rather have another USB-C port instead. And arguing that just because it's still used in desktop computers, then it can't be ancient, I'd like to draw your attention toward the rs232 port that still isn't phased out entirely.
In case I missed it, would you like to point out where exactly you're being forced to buy a specific phone?
I happen to be writing this on an android 13 phone with a 3.5mm jack (I had to check, but it's there), it's not like you can't get a phone with the connector.
i actually find this argument flawed. Bluetooth is great but does not provide feature parity. correct me if I'm wrong but aptX was supposed to be lossless audio, but it has been shown that it has compression artifacts. I'll be happy with Bluetooth only if we can have absolutely lossless audio
If you can tell the difference between well-compressed, high bitrate audio and lossless audio played on the same equipment, then you’re in the minority. However it’s pretty easy to accidentally end up with a combo of phone / app / app settings / headphones that results in a suboptimal listening experience, either because you’re using a bad codec (like SBC on any device or AAC on many Android phones) or because your music is being compressed twice. You can avoid the latter issue by streaming uncompressed music or by using a combo that doesn’t recompress your music (like Apple Music -> iPhone -> Airpods Pro/Max).
It’s also possible that the reason Bluetooth headphones sound worse isn’t because of losing information but because the headphones just aren’t as good as your wired ones. If you get a portable Bluetooth DAC like the Qudelix 5k, you can connect it to your phone and connect your wired headphones to it.
You don’t have to be happy with Bluetooth. You can buy a USB-C DAC for like $10. Apple’s “USB C to 3.5mm Headphone Jack Adapter” is 9 USD direct from Apple and it tested extremely well. You can use it on any modern phone or on your laptop or tablet, too. (You can also use the Qudelix 5k this way.)
If that adapter isn’t good enough (maybe it doesn’t output enough power for your high impedance headphones), then most phone’s built-in DACs + headphone adapters would have the same problem. Basically only Sony and LG (RIP) phones ever had especially good onboard DACs and amps, and even with them it would often make more sense to get a dedicated portable setup.
For anyone who is happy with Bluetooth, though, they don’t have to worry about all this and they get to reap the advantages of the headphone jack’s removal. The extra space can be used for more battery, if nothing else, and it’s easier to prevent dust/water ingress when you eliminate the headphone jack.
Also, I think you’re thinking of LDAC (by Sony), not aptX (by Qualcomm). LDAC is not lossless, either, but it’s much higher bitrate than anything other than the very recently introduced aptX Lossless, which - under ideal conditions - features lossless compression.
Wired headphones don't have to incorporate their own DACs, which means any budget wired set will be better than wireless one of the same price - everything can go into the actual analog part of the equation.
The adapter is extremely inconvenient, it's a small dongle that is easy to lose and you can't even charge your phone and listen to music at the same time, which I personally do very regularly. Besides, making everything go through one port increases wear and tear and reduces reliability of the device.
3,5mm jack doesn't take any significant amount of space and the value of extra teeny tiny piece of battery is ridiculously low. This has always felt like a bullshit excuse to me.
Just my 2 cents.
So, the smaller version of the connector that studios use to this day is ancient, huh?
pfft musicians what the hell do they know about music
NOTHING
My electrician says that woodworking doesn't need ancient tools like hammers.
Actually it's even older. And it's also not used in a phone.
The argument that 3.5mm jacks are somehow superior to a digital stream is so laughably flawed. The 3.5mm jack is a shit connector, always has been. It got its success from being paired with the original walkman, not exactly hifi equipment. The durability of the jack is wanting and a few specks of dust in the socket and you're getting static when you move about.
I don't know how many sockets I've had to replace over time because a male jack broke off in the socket. It's one thing that the jack is so thin that it can break in your pocket. But when manufacturers then mount sockets, that doesn't allow you to push the broken part out, and also uses some weird one-hung-low socket with a weird footprint that you can't source with less than a 5k MOQ, and that is only after searching for an hour. Which then leaves you having to do all sorts of weird cowboy tricks in order to have a working sound output... Then you will get to my level of annoyance with the 3.5mm jack.
All those problems are not really a thing with 6.3mm jacks, but, by all means, keep believing that 3.5mm is superior because professionals use something that looks like it, and disregard everything else.
This is not a well thought out response.
The things you mention had workable replacements and/or were the loser in a standards war. Bluetooth headphones have weaker audio, battery limitations on the headphones and the streaming device and the argument for removing them is just not justified outside of forced path to profits for proprietary headphone sales. Also, there are USB-c headphone options and problems are two fold - clunky, costly adapters and increased stress on the phone's main charging port.
It's not even close to ancient and you're argument is extremely weak.
You’re basically making the exact same Betamax vs VHS argument. The only different is Apple is the Porn industry embracing Bluetooth in favor of wired products.
Aux vs Bluetooth is not analogous to Betamax/VHS. It's more like WiFi and ethernet. WiFi can replace ethernet most of the time, but there are clear benefits to wired connections.
How is this not technically also the same? WiFi can replace Ethernet all of the time with degraded connectivity outside of super secure offerings. The same argument is made for production quality vs home release quality.
Please define "weaker".
What are you talking about? How are you forced to buy some specific BT headphones for your phone?
And the argument about USB-C headphones being clunky? Sure, it may not be optimal, but you could always just buy a phone with a jack or give in and switch to BT.
Ethernet must be ancient tech to you.
In an end-user device? Yes, it's irrelevant. Use wifi unless you have a special usecase.
Wow, so gaming with reliable latency is a special usecase? Wi-Fi is awesome for convenience but it can never be better than wired because of physics.
Yes, yes it is. Most people couldn't care less, they just want convenience.
What are the physics you're talking about?
Wi-Fi is a shared medium where airtime is split amongst multiple clients on a radio spectrum that is open for all the public to use.. Wired gives each device dedicated bandwidth with no interference. Wireless gets better and better, but it can never, and will never, be faster than a dedicated cable.
None of that are physical limitations, it's purely implementational. Legacy ethernet was half-duplex as well, before switching and dedicated pairs for tx/rx became the norm. Handling of the shared medium is done with CSMA-CA and not -CD, which was used for ethernet, so at least we learned something.
Copper is also susceptible to interference, both RFI and EMI. Sure you can mitigate the effect by shielding and twisting the wire pairs with different amounts of twists pr length. But in the end, copper is also susceptible to interference.
I'm not an RF engineer, and I don't have an idea of what can be done to mitigate noise in wifi even further. But claiming that it's an inherent physical limitation, that can't be mitigated, that's just defeatism. It's about the implementation, not physical constraints.
It's absolutely a physical limitation and to argue otherwise is a waste of time. You can use complex multiplexing algorithms to squeeze more out of a single wireless channel, but at the end of the day you're sharing that airspace with anything from another WiFi signal to a microwave oven. To go faster with wired all you have to do is, like you said, add another pair.
EMI can be sheilded, yes, or you can move to optical and then you're literally transferring at the speed of light on a dedicated medium. You simply can't do that with radio. It's not physically possible unless there is some signaling technological breakthrough that we have not yet conceived.
The difference here is that 3,5mm jacks are not obsolete.
Nobody besides a few grumpy folks opposed the switch from microUSB to Type-C, for example, because we got something better instead.
Floppy drives got obsolete, because again, we got something better - disks! And then flash drives! Always a better, more convenient and functional option.
3,5 mm jack, however, is still completely relevant and is not replaced by anything. It is the only widely adopted consumer-grade standard for analog wired audio. Wireless audio has objective drawbacks: one more battery to control, lower reliability, poorer sound quality (not a big issue with most phones since their DACs are normally not audiophile-grade anyway, but still), higher price, pairing issues, and many more. And USB-C to 3,5mm dongles are obviously terrible: they can get lost, they don't allow you to listen to music while charging your phone/transferring files, and they are yet another component to manage.
Essentially, wireless audio has been pushed down our throats, and we do not appreciate that. For me, not having a 3,5mm jack is one of the criterions that immediately kill any desire to buy that phone. It will just be a massive pain in the ass for me, and I don't want that.
Obvious troll is obviously trolling.
The headphone jack is a perfected technology with no competition in terms of usability, performance, environmentally friendliness.
Your analogy makes no sense.
I don't know if it's me you're calling a troll. If it is, I can assure you that I truly believe that the 3.5mm jack is a shit connector, it's only place was in portable equipment, and that it's superceded by bluetooth.
Maybe I presented my views in an inflammatory way, but as I've stated elsewhere, I wanted to get my view across in as little text as possible. Maybe also be a little provocative, so I'd actually get people to read the comment. But I believe what I said and it wasn't formulated in that way to piss people off, just to entice and drive the point home. Exaggeration promotes understanding, but maybe my exaggerating got a little too much and disabled the understanding part.
I've been tinkering with electronics for close to 30 years by now, and my electronics engineering career is in its 3rd decade, and I have encountered issues with 3.5mm jacks time and again.
Trying to repair broken sockets or broken off jacks, still seated in sockets, is tedious and so low reward, when you can just get some BT headphones.
The BT headphones will break, sure, but I'd rather have good use of some 100€ headphones and a 300€ phone, not be frustrated by the wires tangling, and then discard the 100€ headphones when they break than the phone which can live for much longer. Besides if you're buying the right BT headphones you'll be able to source parts for it much easier than an obscure 3.5mm socket with some weird footprint.
Maybe it's not time for the 3.5mm jack to die, for some, but for the rest of us, we don't really care about it. Live and let die, but please stop moaning about it.
agree, and not just for 3,5mm jacks. If there is a way to do it with a cable, i will choose the cable instead of a wireless solution. The only time I didn't was with a wireless mouse that, after a while, I just kept on the cable anyway. They are so very convenient, especially the 3,5mm jack.
Yes, same applies to everything. Thank God USB exists and powers so many wired (and also wireless) devices.
Also, Ethernet on computers is a must.
you do know that you could have made your point in a nicer manner, yes? why would we want to bring the strenuous tones of hollow outrage from reddit to here?
we are all better than that, even the big danish guys.
I'm sorry, but I had to say something. I'm so tired of non-technical people moaning about the out phasing of the 3.5mm jack, and especially the arguments about audio quality and vendor lock in that has been raised in this thread. I had to make sure that it was understood, that the view is not unopposed.
Could I have done it more diplomatically? Maybe, but I also wanted to drive my point home in as short a post as possible.
I asked chatgpt to help out rewriting my comment, but with your criticism in mind. It came up with:
While 3.5mm jacks may seem like a staple, it's worth noting that technology evolves. Much like the transition from 3.5" floppy drives, change takes time to be widely accepted. The omission of the jack in smartphones isn't about dismissing tradition but adapting to newer, more versatile alternatives. It's been nearly a decade since the OPPO R5, and as technology progresses, embracing these changes can lead to a broader range of innovative features.
I don't want to bore people to death, but I can also see now how perhaps I could have attacked the technology instead of the people.
We are better than our old /u/ on reddit, and we must strive to keep it that way. Competing with reddit on toxicity, will be a fight we'll never be able to win.
Thank you for calling me out on my BS, and helping us all to keep the fediverse a better place.
Being an electronic engineer and a programmer I would categorize myself as a "technical person". I am also a person that prefers devices that are as reliable an repairable as possible. A headphone without a battery and with a replaceable cable can last you literally decades. A TWS one, will not.
To add to that, using a dongle means a separate device that can break (and is most likely not repairable), that isn't necessarily compatible with anything you plug it in to, that has a dac (which is redundant since your phone could use the internal one if you had a 3.5mm connector) and that will cause extra battery drain (regardless of how much more, it's more than 0).
There are literally 0 benefits to removing the headphone jack. Several people have even shown that devices that "don't have enough space" for it can be modded to add the 3.5mm jack and you don't even lose any functionality.
Removing the headphone jack is a step backwards.
[Citation needed]
Translation: it's original, unpublished, and unreviewed research.
My own background is in embedded electronics too. Whether there is a benefit in removing the jack or not has not been part of my arguments.
Some people will say that the jack needs to go for waterproofing, but I distinctly remember owning a Sony Xperia M4 which had both a jack and an IP68 rating.
I'm also not saying that your arguments aren't valid, I just value different aspects.... Except for the part about an external DAC being redundant. An external DAC, with RCA or XLR connectors, some proper cable can potentially give you a better result than the internal DAC and the 3.5mm jack. Emphasis on the "potential" part.
I haven't used wired headphones on a regular basis, since that Xperia in 2015ish, and I don't miss untangling the wires, or fixing a broken socket where the solder is cracked, the pins are broken inside the plastic housing of the socket, or clearing a socket of a broken male jack.
IMO the 3.5mm jack is a poor connector. It breaks too easily, dust in the socket leads to static and to be quite honest if I can tell a difference in sound quality, it's my BT headphones that comes out on top.
As long as there's a demand for 3.5mm jacks in phones they'll still be marketed. But if people could stop pointing out that another overpriced smartphone lacks the jack, it would just be swell. Just buy a more modestly priced phone instead of forking over +700€ for a frigging phone.
I currently have a Sony Xperia 5V. It has an IP68 rating, it's basically a flagship phone and it has a headphone jack. Manufacturers don't include the jack because they don't want to but it's 100% possible.
Sorry, but that bit about the external dac is pretty dumb. We're talking about using a mobile phone and you're talking xlr and rca? Really?
Maybe use a case? I usually have a small roud case for my IEMs that barely takes up space. You're already carrying a case for tws so I don't see why it would be a problem.
At least you can fix it. If the battery on a wireless IEM dies, 9 times out of 10 you can't fix it and need to get a new one.
Maybe don't use shitty jacks?
Don't know how or where you use your phone but that literally never happened to me. Honestly, none of the issues you mentioned have been a problem for me. Maybe take better care of your stuff?
And regarding people pointing out the lack of a basic feature. Yeah, no. If a company makes shitty products, I'll keep pointing it out. Also, there are fewer and fewer phones with a headphone jack every year. Cheap and expensive. So no, price has nothing to dp with this.
mama always stupid is as stupid does
I've read at least once in this thread an argument, that 3.5mm jack is superior to BT or USB-C, on account of the audio quality. If you're using your phone for playback in a setup where you can tell the difference, then an external DAC, with proper connectors, is warranted.
How about wireless instead? They can be more discreet, and you don't always have to care about stowing then away. There's a bit of a difference between rolling the wire(s) up or just plopping the individual TWS in a case, where orientation is handled by a magnet.
Nothing to do with the jack. I'm talking about the pins coming from the circular part of the socket and going to the PCB. I've seen them break inside the socket housing, where you can't get to them. Leaving you with the options of either
If you want to avoid this issue, then you need to evaluate the socket in the device as part of your purchasing considerations. But most stores don't like it when you take their stuff apart. Instruct your users (in my case friends and family) to be really careful OR just use wireless.
Or, and bear with me here, I'll keep using my devices how I want, as I've found a perfectly good strategy for not breaking a 3.5mm male jack in the socket? Most of the times I have had to deal with this issue in this millennium, I haven't even been the culprit.
And I'll keep telling you that nobody really cares, most of your arguments are moot, and your opinion is not that of the vast majority.
I wonder how that could be /s
It started with flagships IIRC, sure it may have trickled down into other segments.
First of all, I didn't say that but it is true. Bluetooh is not just technically inferior, it also has severe limitations in bidirectional communications such as phone calls. Which you know, you tend to have when you're usign a mobile phone.
However, the real difference comes when you compare the headphones themselves. Something like a Moondrop Aria or a Truthear Hexa is under 80USD and will be significantly better than a wireless IEM that costs the same. You can even go down to 30/40USD and still fine good products.
You need the IEMs to be "discreet"? What? hahaha that's a first. Also, rolling up the wire takes a few seconds. None of this is an issue.
Then don't buy crappy devices? I don't know dude. I have audio gear more than 40 years old and I've literally never had this issue.
Ah but you keep the conversation going and that's what matters my friend. Also, who cares if my opinion is "in the vast majority" or not? Do you only share your views if you know other people agree? That's dumb.
Yeah, uninformed consumers and increased profit margins will do that to the market. Go figure.
Not trolling, just sharing facts.
Neither dumb nor arrogant. Have you seen the size of an XLR connector? Or headphones that use an RCA jack? Do you even know of a device that has those connectors and doesn't require external power? If you don't know what you're talking about, don't talk.
What company does this? I keep hearing the argument, but I have no clue who it is.
I haven't found a phone my Jabra headsets couldn't connect to. Only my ps4, but that is not really part of this discussion.
Thank you!
Much appreciated, unironically. All hail the fedi!
You know the kind of guy who writes nothing but bad things and troll comments, and then wonders why his life sucks? Well... that was me. Every time something good happened to me, something bad was always waiting around the corner. Karma. That's when I realised I had to change. So, I switched from reddit and joined the fediverse. I'm just trying to be a better person. My name is ~~Earl~~ bigdanishguy.
We need to be better, reddit can go suck a donkey, but if we want this to be a viable alternative down the road, we need to be better. Calling each other out on bull shit behavior is warranted from time to time.
This is just proof smartphones are toys and not real tools.
They do everything poorly. iPhone video and photo looks like garbage compared to a real camera and now you can't even play music without overly compressed bluetooth. This is like wanting a flip phone filter for your camera. It's asinine and backward and you defend it like a lemming because HURR FLOPPY DISK SMALL. Apples and oranges. A universal connector capable of delivering a strong signal is not the same as a low capacity storage format.
But please do go on about how great your tracking device is
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