I just want them to make a true flagship phone. I personally wouldn’t mind paying extra for a more ethical phone, if it had all the bells and whistles and wasn’t half obsolete straight out of the box.
Why does The Fairphone (Gen. 6) not have an audio jack?
After some of the criticism that we received about removing the headphone jack from Fairphone 4, we did consider bringing it back for The Fairphone (Gen. 6). However, we realized it would be at the expense of increasing the phone’s dimensions. We also looked into the consumer data and Fairphone 4’s weight and thickness were more of an issue than the lack of a minijack, so we decided to keep the same approach, although it was a difficult decision. We didn’t want to invest in OLED technology for the display and then not have improved the phone’s dimensions and weight. But just like with Fairphone 4 and Fairphone 5, we will still offer an adapter, which has had overall positive user reviews.
“We heard the criticism but decided that no, you would still need an adapter to use headphones, plus a USB-C hub to be able to charge the damn thing while listening to music or watching videos”
Funny how that’s the same excuses that we get for modern laptops terrible design. “We HAVE to make it thinner so there’s no space! You wouldn’t want a laptop that’s not complete shit if it meant it’d also be less thin and breakable, now would you?”
Let me expand, as I usually deal with surveys and population feedback. There’s loud feedback, and there’s statistically significant feedback.
People who want a headphone jack are very loud. They will interject this issue into every feedback opportunity given. They will mention it on the comment sections, forums, q&a sessions, answer their surveys accordingly, etc. That’s all fine and their prerogative.
However, when you look at the statistics. They are unfortunately a very tiny minority of the entire population. They are not statistically significant for decision making. They don’t have the volume to move sales significantly. This sucks, of course, and I personally wouldn’t mind the return of headphone jacks, smaller phones and bigger batteries as a fair trade for thicker phones.
But unfortunately, the vast majority of the market is pre-occupied with other things. The phone screen is too small, the phone weights too much, the phone is too thick, I want to bring my phone to the pool without fear of it breaking, etc. They are not as passionate about it, not like the headphone people are, but they far outnumber them in several orders of magnitude. In the end, if the product doesn’t sell, it won’t matter how much it was worth to a single passionate person. It will sink the company if it doesn’t have mass appeal. Making phones is already an extremely expensive endeavor.
People who want a headphone jack […] are unfortunately a very tiny minority of the entire population.
People interested in paying more for fair trade materials and repairable phones are also a very tiny minority of the entire population.
Of course I don’t have any statistic, but I would guess that the proportion of people wanting a Jack is significantly higher in the group of people interested in buying Fairphone that on the general population.In my particular case, I’m still using my Fairphone 3, and I’m not buying a Fairphone again unless it has a Jack.
Like I’ve said before- their market is small enough they should be trying to get everyone they can to buy it.
That’s what they’re doing. That’s why they remove the headphone jack in favour for a slimmer, lighter phone. Their market research showed that’s more important to a bigger portion of their customers.
No earphone jack again. That’s a bit sad. Even though I mainly use BLT earbuds, I still sometimes wish I could use my wired headphones. It’s just a small inconvenience
I had a phone without before, that one came with a simple cheap passive adapter for USB-C to 3.5mm headset. You lose out on using headphones while charging, but other than that I was never really inconvenienced…
I disagree about this being a good solution. USB-C is not meant to take the strain of being used as an audio port when being used in the go so there is risk of damaging the port while a headphone jack is more stable and allows the plug to rotate. Plus I don’t want to have a dingle I can forget when in a rush.
They should make cases with the adapter built in, the way they used to (still do?) for external battery packs.
Or just put the port in the phone.
After having a phone without a 3.5mm port or a microSD card slot, the top 2 features I want on a phone are a 3.5mm port and a microSD card slot.
Shame Sony discontinued their Xperia 5 series, even if they were also excessively priced.
aw man, this is the first i’m hearing about discontinuation. apparently it’s because people want larger phones?!
i have a 5 IV and it is by far the largest phone i’ve ever owned… i wish it was like an inch smaller. but it was the only model i could find that doesn’t have a non-rectangular screen. these bloody camera cutouts are everywhere and i never even use the front camera.
What’s the use case for microSD slots on phones these days anyway?
If it’s (just) to avoid paying Google or Apple storage fees, you can work around that by buying one or several HDDs to keep at home and sync stuff over the local network, possibly even build a server and access your stuff remotely.
I really don’t understand the need for that much space on the go, though. Are you watching entire series on your phone?
“just”, I think not giving money to Apple or Google anything is a perfectly good reason alone to want expandable storage.
Phone manufacturers charge a massive premium for more storage on a phone, storage which is then lost if the phone dies. A microSD card can be moved around and they cost little.
Not everyone has a home server, in fact a very very small percentage do and being able to store their photos and what-not on a microSD card is very valuable. The freedom to add more storage is a good thing to have. Most people can understand an SD card, but not how to setup an entire home server with syncing etc, let alone exposing that to the web to access it anywhere. It also costs money to run, a microSD card doesn’t.
The only reason we don’t have expandable storage or a 3.5mm port anymore is: money. They want to sell you that cloud service, upcharge you for more internal storage and make you buy their bluetooth earbuds.
I understand all of that and I agree with you. Not wanting to pay monthly storage fees is perfectly reasonable too. I know I did everything to avoid giving Google any money for storage.
But microSD slots on phones aren’t coming back, and manufacturers are giving you 512GB of internal storage at most, so we need to move on with the times.
I don’t have a home server (yet) either, but I do have 2 TB disks I use to store all the important stuff I want to save forever. Nothing lives on my phone so I’m fine with 128GB.
Local syncing can be done just by installing Syncthing or Omnisend, and everything gets transferred through your home Wi-Fi. No need for complicated setups. I mentioned home servers as an example but you certainly don’t need one.
MicroSD cards also die so I don’t know why you used that as a slight against internal phone storage. You should always have backups.
Storage is dirt cheap these days, it makes no sense to hinder yourself buying niche phones, often at inflated prices, just for a feature that is easily worked around. In my opinion.
I hope you’re not suggesting that people store all of their photos and movies and stuff on their phones SD card and SD card only……
SD cards are absurdly volatile and prone to corruption.
Of course not… people should still do regular backups.
It’s really a small inconvenience, but using an adapter would mean I’d be prone to misplace it when I use my headphones on anything else, so it hardly makes anything better
The reason for not using a headphone jack is making it simpler for the manufacturer, one less connector to handle which also limits how slim a phone can be.
I’m not saying this is good for the consumer, but there are reasons for integrating the functionality into the USB-C port.
These points were all disproved long ago. The jack is a the same thickness as the display.
The reason is because BT headphones have a much higher margin, and need to be replaced every few years because of the battery (if not already replaced because they were lost or damaged).
It’s just a dumb cash grab.
This would make sense if the only Bluetooth headphones that worked with the phone were made by the same company, but alas, that’s not how it works.
The reason they don’t have a headphone jack anymore is because it’s easier to make without it, saves money, has a built in replacement in BT, and people overwhelmingly love BT headphones due to being wireless.
Not having a headphone jack is just a slap in the face from a company whose whole image is supposed to be longevity and eco-friendly.
No one has been using aux cable mobile headphones for the past 10 years. Headphone jack is e-waste at this point. bluetooth audio is great and if you really want to be a boomer you can use the usb C headphones.
Headphone jack is e-waste
you can use the usb C headphones
What the absolute fuck are you talking about? What am I supposed to do with the dozen wired headphones I already have? Some of them decades old? Throw them in the garbage? Sounds real eco-friendly.
bluetooth audio is great
It is. We had it on phones since before the original iPhone. No one wants to take that away.
Problem is BT headphones last 2 years then they go in the garbage because the batteries are dead. How eco-friendly is that!?
There’s a deGoogled version too!!
I would prefer GrapheneOS (If I can live with the irony of getting a Pixel phone just to deGoogle it…). Sandboxing there is way better. But you lose the Repairability… Gotta check and compare the new EU metrics too.
They are just two different devices.
Degoogled version is €50 more, for whatever reason
the reason: support for developers. You can install it yourself to save that amount.
love fairphone but i cant go bacl from graphene os. its so nice not having google attacjed to everything.
If you want something not Google, I used to have Ubuntu Touch on a Fairphone before Australia’s 3G network was switched off. It would have to be an older Fairphone however.
It’s too bad they dont ship to Canada. I’m in the market for a new phone and would seriously consider this.
