Why wouldn't you prefer a headphone jack in your phone? It is yet another option for headphones that worst case you don't use. The only reason it has been removed is because it saves companies a few cents on the cost to build the product.

Credit where it's due, Bluetooth headphones have come a long way. I like the ones I have now. That said, removing the jack and micro SD slots was extremely anti consumer and they should come back.

nope, actually never used it. i've had and will continue having Bluetooth headphones

"VPN user voting is not allowed"

Lol.

I hate that I now have to use wireless earbuds that I now have to worry about charging, or that go flat at the most inopertune times....

Having something plugged into the usb-c port all day sounds like a recipe for a broken port.

Nah, once I made the switch to Bluetooth 8 years ago or something. I have never gone back.

Actually I did once between Bluetooth headsets and the first time the cords got tangled I was like oh right that's why.

Yes, because fuck having to charge and monitor another battery and the way they are trying to push higher price and disposable device.

The headphone jack would be less painful of a loss if phone manufacturers started adding a second USB-C port on top of the device. That way you wouldn't have to choose between charging your phone, listening to your game without lag and in privacy, or carry a dongle to try doing both things at the same time.

I exclusively use wired earbuds because I fucking hate bluetooth as a technology

This poll kind of sucks for data gathering. You ask two different questions but there's only one set of answers. Even the first question alone asks if we use and/or require, which should be separate.

To answer though: I use my headphone adapter whenever I travel but don't have a regular headphone jack. A jack is not absolutely required for me to purchase a phone but the adapter is.

Yes. It's my way of voting with my wallet. I already have a few nice headphones and I'm not replacing them just because phone manufacturers are cheap and lazy.

Besides, I hate batteries. They always die at the most inconvenient time. And USB-c just for audio is way overkill.

Drag your preferred option to the top wtf is this UX...

Why isn't there an option for "the lack of a headphone jack is a complete deal breaker and I refuse to even consider a phone that doesn't have one?"

I hate to say but the poll is biased because you asked two questions that are not the same.

I currently have a phone without a jack, so the first question is obviously no. But the second question, would I prefer it, is a yes.

So there's a group of people who would prefer it, but it's not a deal breaker for them in your data, but they answered a different question than the headline.

Nice bullshit poll making 'Yes' the pre-selected choice and clicking an other option not changing it, even when its highlighted. Dragging choices is absolutely counterintuitive and actively misleading. Lets start a poll if people like murder and wonder about the 50/50 result at the end.

I like the simplicity of wired headphones

Yes! No.1 reason: microphone quality! I have to attend many calls every day and no Bluetooth headset (BT v.4 > 5.3, SPS, AAC, LDAC) has even come close to the simple quality of a ~25,-€ wired headset.

I have a jack. I do use it on occasion. But man some of you really, really hate Bluetooth.

It's not THAT bad. Maybe your phones just have a really shitty transmitter/receiver? Sure, it's not as good as it can get with a jack.

But I also don't want to have wires hanging while running or biking. Being able to change volume and songs without picking up my phone from pocket is also very convenient.

I still want a jack in my phone. But I really don't get the extreme hate on Bluetooth. It's not 2005 anymore. Bluetooth technology has progressed.

I use both. I want both. Bluetooth and headphone jack. Is this too much to ask?

Opted not to vote because:

• biased leading questions
• strawpoll

Yes but this voting style is uhhh ... poop

Yes! I do still use the headphone jack. Bluetooth is trash and suffers from extreme latency and is not capable of the same quality of a wired connection.

I recently bought some bluetooth earphones (sony wf-c500) after many years of avoiding it. I was under the impression that things had improved but bluetooth is still as bad as I remember them. The audio latency on windows alone is unreal but another kettle of fish.

The real disgrace is that phone manufacturers removed the MicroSD card slot and then tried to justify it with weak excuses that didn't add up. MicroSD/SD cards have also recently become much quicker but nobody was using a MicroSD card as primary storage anyway so it was irrelevant and a weak argument at best. The only reason why phone manufacturers did remove it was to charge you much more for the large storage capacity phones. I would also say the price increase for that given storage space was and is also vastly more expensive than it actually is. In other words it is a cash grab. Its also of no coincidence that many phone manufacturers also now sell their own shitty Bluetooth headphones.

We can also sight the absence of charging cables/cords and wall plugs/power bricks. Not to mention that people these days are more privacy focused and tech savvy and begrudgingly use android or apple phones as they know with each update their privacy is being further eroded away. Whilst also being undermined by manufacturers with such things as planned obsolescence and them deliberately making it difficult if not impossible to repair your own phone.

...and phone manufacturers wonder why nobody wants to buy a phone anymore. Dumbasses! The truth is there are many more number of reasons why phones are garbage these days.

I found an ideal solution for this (in my opinion). A Bluetooth DAC. The specific one I have is the FiiO BTR5, but there are others.

For mine specifically, it has the standard 3.5mm output (TRS), as well as a TRRS balanced connection (I believe it's 2.5mm), and it can receive a signal from either Bluetooth or over USB from is USB C port.

The best feature of it is that I can charge it, while I'm using it. Which is something that most all-in-one Bluetooth headphones miss entirely. Even if they can be worn while plugged into a charger, many don't operate while they're being charged. All the true wireless (aka airpod style) by headphones, can't even be plugged into power directly, nor would it be possible to use them while they're charging in their case.

I can pick any headphones I want to use with it, provided they can operate from a 3.5mm connection (or something that can be adapted to 3.5) or by a balanced headphone connection.... Basically any ear-mounted sound generating devices that use a wire, can be used with a few exceptions.

I'm naturally very cautious, so I also have a charging dongle that has a 3.5mm audio jack on it as a backup. It can literally charge my phone and play sound at the same time... I'm tethered to my phone, which IMO, isn't ideal. With the BTR5, I can thread the wire through my shirt or something, and clip the unit to me or stuff it in a pocket and not worry about it. If I need my phone, I'm not fighting with how long (or short) my headphone cable is. The BTR also supports LDAC as well as aptX and related codecs, so it generally sounds excellent. It's a bit of a bear to get it set up, so I generally pull it out for long walk/work sessions away from my desk, or if I'm in a situation where I'm waiting for something to happen for a long time. I also have a handful of Bluetooth headphones, all of which have their (dis) advantages, and I flip between what I have as the need arises. I prefer the BTR5, but it's not always the best or most feasible given the situation.

IMO the BTR5 is better than just having a headphone plug on my phone, since the DAC and AMP in the device is known-good (many reviewers of audio stuff give it great ratings all around), and I can be untethered from my phone, so typing/scrolling/whatever is the same as normal; I'm not having to position my hand funny to avoid a bulky cable/adapter.

I had benchmarks that led me to the BTR5, and between it and the dongle, I have all my benchmarks covered.

I'm not a fan of BT headphones. It's three things (2 pods and the case that charges them) that you have to juggle and keep charged, vs just one that works whenever the device it's plugged into works. Wired headphones have a nice additional perk of discouraging people from interacting with you, while (at least anecdotally) the BT ones seem to lose that deterrent... and the venn diagram for times I want to use headphones and the times I don't want to deal with other people is just one crisp circle.

I always try to pick out a phone that has a 3.5mm jack, but that's becoming increasingly hard to do.

I mostly use bluetooth, but the jack of my phone is not sitting there unused. I have wired headphones too, and I frequently use my phone as a microphone (because it is one) by connecting it to my computer by a jack cable.

Also, the next headphone of mine will probably be wired. Always keeping it charged is not really a problem, but the privacy aspect of Bluetooth has started to disturb me.
With a wired connection, you exactly know and control who connects to your devices, and at the same time you don't announce to the world that you are here.

Also, as I understand you can't use USB-C for audio and charging or data transfer at the same time, or even all 3 at the same time. Is that right?
That is critical functionality for me. Audio is not just entertainment, it could be an online meeting or other things too, and at one point I'll have to change my phone, or transfer files from it. However I don't have a USB-C phone so I can't test it, so I would appreciate if someone could confirm if this is actually the case.

I do prefer to use a headphone jack when my phone is the source of music for my amplified sound system and large room speakers.

I feel like every comment I'm reading assumes there's only two options - either headphone jack + wired headphones, or no headphone jack + Bluetooth.

I just use a USB-C dongle with a headphone jack on it. It'd be nice to have it built-in, sure, but the dongle is only a few bucks, small, doesn't really add a lot of extra stuff to carry if I'm already carrying headphones.

It's not a deal-breaker for my if a phone doesn't have a headphone jack because if it doesn't I can easily add one.

The poll/voting process is flawed & I don't like that.

That said, idk, I'm a blue collar working adult & the aux/wired connection isn't a necessity in my daily life. I can often, if not always, blast my music on an Ion loudspeaker. Car has Bluetooth. Home, I've got Bluetooth.

But that's just not the point for me; my phone has an aux port & I rarely use it. Used it to connect headphones on a walk last week. It's nice & I like having the option. Getting rid of it was purely an anti-consumer move, so needless, and obviously they can build it into the phones without detracting from battery or taking away from water resistance. Everything I've heard justifying removing aux is either a lie or an excuse.

I usually use wireless headphones nowadays, but there are still plenty of instances where I'm happy to have the headphone jack. Random parties where someone needs to play music via the aux cable, going somewhere with only some small wired headphones in my pocket because I dont have space, etc. For me it's still quite important that my next phone has one.

My current phone (Pixel 6) doesn't have a headphone jack, and I hate it because of that. I bought an adapter and it didn't work, turns out most phones with a Qualcomm SoC have a DAC so a passive adapter is fine... But the pixel has a non-qualcomm SoC which doesn't have a DAC connected to the USB-C port so I had to get a dongle with a DAC. They suck, and cost more than the passive dongles, and half of them sound like garbage with terrible QC.

Also dongles are easy to lose or break, since they are fragile.

My next phone has to have a headphone jack.

It's a nice to have and frankly aside from maybe water resistance there's no good reason to remove it. The 3.5mm jack has worked since the dawn of portable music, doesn't require often fickle pairing, and of significant issue to me at least doesn't have the potential for some future DRM scheme when the media companies decide you have to use their special app to play something. It's much the same reason I resisted HDMI for as long as possible.

That said, I do use wireless and probabbly would routinely even if the current phone did have a jack, but I would very much like to have it there just for the option to plug a wire in and attach it wherever I feel like. Wouldn't be the first time an aux port or RCA adapter came in handy.

I'm somewhat surprised by the result if I'm honest. I have switched to wireless and won't go back at all. I do understand the use case for those who want them too but I did not realise it was such a popular request in modern phones!

I don't actively need a headphone jack on my phone but when I do need one I am annoyed that my phone does not have one.

Man, fuck this straw poll website. VPN voting is not allowed? I’m not even on a VPN.

In answer to your question, OP: No, it’s not a requirement for me. I would much prefer if I had one, but it’s not that important for me, I don’t often listen to music from my phone, and when I do I’m in the car, so I just play it over Bluetooth.