this post was submitted on 06 Sep 2023
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A couple hours before I was on the edge of getting a Fairphone 5 but I read the specifications and didn't see 3.5 mm audio jack anywhere. So I thought to myself...why? The community has been requesting this for a couple years ago now so why not. They're already making money on the phone, they're really pushing for people to get their wireless headphones? Just add the headphone jack, shouldn't be too hard.

They said they're treating their workers fairly, sourcing from ethical sources, renewable claims, repairability claims, and supporting foss projects (they donated a fp4 to CalyxOS to support development). All of these are amazing, so adding a little headphone jack shouldn't be that hard in the grand scheme of all this.

*Add the headphone jack and I'll be happy to support and get a fp5.

https://calyxos.org/news/2022/02/25/device-support/

https://shop.fairphone.com/fairphone-5

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[–] [email protected] 19 points 1 year ago (39 children)

So I thought to myself…why?

Why? There are various arguments as to why the old audio jack standard is obsolete, but this discussion was essentially settled with the Fairphone 4, which was the first one that did not have a headphone jack. And they released a detailed article describing their reasoning..

https://support.fairphone.com/hc/en-us/articles/9836188988049-Audio-jack-3-5mm

The community has been requesting this for a couple years

The community? It's not as if Fairphone just willy nilly decided to get rid of the headphone jack, this was done with feedback from the community in mind.. Just because you are loud and passionate doesn't mean that your opinion is the only one that represents the community's.. As a fairphone user and "member of the community", I say fuck the 3.5 mm jack.. It's an ancient standard that was obsolete years ago,

And just to be clear, this isn't a discussion about wireless vs wired earbuds. You can have wired USB earbuds, you can even use your old 3.5 mm jack headphones with an adaptor. This is a discussion whether we should switch back to an ancient and inferior standard just because you are used to it..

Just add the headphone jack, shouldn’t be too hard.

And this entitled and wilfully ignorant attitude will make people take you even less seriously.. You can't "just add the headphone jack", decisions like that have an impact on all of the design of the device and have to be carefully evaluated.. You simply going "come on just do it, how hard can it be" will not convince anyone..

[–] [email protected] 15 points 1 year ago (14 children)

The only ignorant answer i'm seeing is from yourself.

The headphone jack is an inexpensive small connector that offers far better quality than bluetooth does (i.e. lossless audio), is universal and is a really inexpensive feature to add to a device.

The ONLY reason it has been removed is to push the sales of wireless headphones and earbuds. Fairphone got rid of it and soon after started selling bluetooth devices. And you just bought the marketing. As for the usb adapters, those are an extra point of failure and easy to misplace.

For all the good things Fairphone did, this is a really shitty one. If Sony can keep the jack on all their devices, anybody can, and the rest are excuses.

You don't like the jack? You can just keep using bluetooth.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I personally don't care too much about the headphone jack (or lack thereof) when buying a new phone. That being said, for someone that doesn't care all that much about audio quality, Bluetooth headphones are just fine, and I prefer having a more water resistant phone (maybe I just bought into the marketing on that point, but it seems harder to waterproof a phone when there are holes in it, though the usb port is still there as a weak point so...)

I've just accepted that the lack of headphone jack is the new norm.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago

Yet the samsung galaxy s5 existed and had the same ip rating (ip67) as the iphone 8.

All while maintaining both the headphone jack and a removable battery.

All excuses are just that, excuses. They wanted to remove it to profit from the sales of more expensive buds.

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