Samsung gives its reason for removing the 3.5mm jack on the Galaxy Note 10 phones but it's as dumb as you'd expect

[Redaktion]

Samsung removed the 3.5mm headphone jack from the Galaxy Note 10+ phones, the first time it's ever done that on a flagship. The company has stated its reasons for the removal but they all sound like, well, bullshit.

https://www.notebookcheck.net/Samsung-gives-its-reason-for-removing-the-3-5mm-jack-on-the-Galaxy-Note-10-phones-but-it-s-as-dumb-as-you-d-expect.428844.0.html

[S.Yu]

Why even say it? I mean who are they fooling? Themselves?

[Artem]

Guys, who cares about those 3.5 mm jacks? Seriously!
I think it's only important to tech sites & bloggers.

Every respectful producer includes a pair of headphones that work perfectly with usb or lighting ports. Moreover these headphones last for years until we buy another phone with another headphones...

So please stop making drama out of 3.5 mm jack. Less & less people care about it!

[Helium007]

Who cares about 3,5mm jack some still may ask?

I do, and a LOT. Wireless earphones suck in terms of usability.  With standart wired earphones you always:

- at any time in second can listen to a music
- in a second you can play games with sound (from mute mode)
- never have to care about battery (in phone or more important in earphones)
- never have to worry about price

I actually tried bluetooth audio adapter to 3,5 mm jack for about 3 weeks. I totally disliked that I have to always wait for pairing. I always have to check battery if its charged  (always out of battery when I needed it). Not to mention audio quality.

I use audio on the daily travel and I could never imagine it without wired earphones. Especially pairing stuff is anoying. Not to mention fact that you can forget your earphones paired and could miss a call. With cable, you almost cannot leave phone in pocket with cable attached without knowing it :)

[A]

Wanna know a reason for a minijack?

1 - better sound quality (yes, bluetooth can cause some issues)
2 - people usually already own a corded pair of headphones

And it's the second one that matters to apple/samsung/huawei etc... To force customers to buy another accessory (either dongle, or a shiny pair of bluetooth headphones).

[Oneirics]

We want WiFi, wireless charging, wireless everything and still people complain about 3.5mm audio jack.  :o

[Astar]

@Artem / @Oneirics - if you all are stupid and do not know what a 3.5mm jack is. Shut up!

My 3 year old Shure wired earphones sounds much better than Bluetooth earphones costing 2-3 times more. I only use cheapo bluetooth headsets when I'm doing sports like cycling or running. Never for hi-fi quality enjoyment. If you can't tell the difference - shut up!

Wired earphones also allow free FM radio reception in any country I travel to. Its free music that lasts forever on battery and allows me to listen to local music, BBC news or local weather news and emergency broadcasts. It was so critically useful when I was tour-cycling in Taiwan just after typhoon season.

I use a tiny stub type external condenser audio mic which I connect to the 3.5mm jack for audio recording of meetings/conferences. It offers much better quality and loudness than any built-in phone mic. $10.

My selfie-stick camera trigger connects to the 3.5mm jack and never needs to be charged or paired. $5.

I connect a Boya shotgun mic to the jack for perfectly synced audio in my 1080p/4K videos shot from my phone on a selfie stick or gimbal - professional quality results with NO WIND NOISE! $30.

I also have an iBlazr type LED light connected to the same jack which can rotate in any direction as a flash/light for selfies/video/camera shots. $5.

The real reason they want to remove the 3.5mm jack is to save them the need to bundle in a $5 (or less since they order in bulk) hands free headset. Then they can sell you a $100 - $200 bluetooth headset which sounds worse than my Shure.

The iFixit teardowns have proven that there is no battery capacity gain. The space where the jack would have occupied just goes to waste. That was proven when Apple first screwed stupid consumers like you by using the same stupid excuse. Batteries are rectangular shaped, that freed space CANNOT be added to a battery cell unless you show me an odd shaped battery cell component with a strange protrusion.

The ASUS ZenFone 6 has everything - including a 5000mAh battery
while retaining a 3.5mm jack and dedicated SD card slot with 2 x SIM slots. If I buy a flagship phone, you better not cut corners, damn you!

Kid, learnt anything yet dumb dumb?

[Alex Paul]

Its ironic that increase of 100 mAh will be wasted in Bluetooth earphones.

In summary nothing gained ....and functionality lost.  Glad i bought the s10 plus

[S.Yu]

Guys, who cares about those 3.5 mm jacks? Seriously!
I think it's only important to tech sites & bloggers.

Every respectful producer includes a pair of headphones that work perfectly with usb or lighting ports. Moreover these headphones last for years until we buy another phone with another headphones...

So please stop making drama out of 3.5 mm jack. Less & less people care about it!

You're too ignorant. The hifi audio market is thriving and not only is 3.5mm going strong, 2.5mm balanced and 4.4mm balanced are also catching on, so not only those who bought $200 cables (this is about average price) with industry standard single-ended 3.5 want to keep their connection, those with balanced cables also rely on a converter to 3.5 when they need to connect to their phones, and they don't want another 3.5mm-C converter on top of that!

[S.Yu]

We want WiFi, wireless charging, wireless everything and still people complain about 3.5mm audio jack.  :o

Wireless charging in its current form never should've happened. Intel's demonstration of lighting a bulb in a 5m radius is wireless charging, keeping your phone confined to a damn mat when it's out of battery is more tethered than a cable! Not to mention the magnetic cables, I don't know why these haven't caught on worldwide but these are the proper compromise (they work like Magsafe but also transfer data) before real wireless charging.

[frogg]

Compared to the jack, the USB-C connector is very very fragile. And if you break it, your whole motherboard is dead. Perhaps that's what manufacturers are waiting for?

[Kenneth Brodersen]

@Astar

Most people don't care much about external shotgun mics and high quality audiophile equipment. I can hear the difference between bluetooth headphones and a good pair of wired headphones but I use the wireless headphones - and have been for years - anyway. Why? Because I care more about convenience than quality...

I also find it fascinating  how you manage to call everybody else stupid. Let's get a few things straight.
1) Almost all phones (even the hated iphone) is delivered with a usb-c (or lightning) headset. The connector changed, but thats about it...
2) Yeah. The battery excuse is lame. In reality it has to do with simpler design. Leaving out the headphone jack frees up space for other things and leaves one less spot for dirt and water to seep in. And sure. Off cause they wan't people to buy accessories!

Please stop being such a jerk and realise that people are diffent. Your have some great points, but your way of presenting says a lot about your personality...

[Helium007]

1) Almost all phones (even the hated iphone) is delivered with a usb-c (or lightning) headset. The connector changed, but thats about it...

In theory yes... BUT you can NOT charge with earphones plugged (or you have to use really dumb dongle (in year 2019 !!!). And most important fact is (someone mention this below) that USB C / Lightning etc. is much more fragile than 3,5 mm jack that is here for about 50 years. I am working in servicing electronics (including smartphones) and had huge amout of phones with broken microUSB/ USB C. A met broken audio jack only once and it was after extreme conditions.

As I am thinking about it. Fine - remove audio jack (i will buy some adapter), but introduce some more rugged connector to replace USB C. This will of course never happpen, because more rugged connectors are never slim, light and etc  crap that marketing needs.

[Oneirics]

Stop listening to digital and go analog if you want music at it's purest form.
You download/stream digital music onto your phone in 1s and 0s and then go through an analog jack and tell me that it's good?
Try vinyls, you'll never listen to digital music the same ever again.

@Artem / @Oneirics - if you all are stupid and do not know what a 3.5mm jack is. Shut up!

My 3 year old Shure wired earphones sounds much better than Bluetooth earphones costing 2-3 times more. I only use cheapo bluetooth headsets when I'm doing sports like cycling or running. Never for hi-fi quality enjoyment. If you can't tell the difference - shut up!

Wired earphones also allow free FM radio reception in any country I travel to. Its free music that lasts forever on battery and allows me to listen to local music, BBC news or local weather news and emergency broadcasts. It was so critically useful when I was tour-cycling in Taiwan just after typhoon season.

I use a tiny stub type external condenser audio mic which I connect to the 3.5mm jack for audio recording of meetings/conferences. It offers much better quality and loudness than any built-in phone mic. $10.

My selfie-stick camera trigger connects to the 3.5mm jack and never needs to be charged or paired. $5.

I connect a Boya shotgun mic to the jack for perfectly synced audio in my 1080p/4K videos shot from my phone on a selfie stick or gimbal - professional quality results with NO WIND NOISE! $30.

I also have an iBlazr type LED light connected to the same jack which can rotate in any direction as a flash/light for selfies/video/camera shots. $5.

The real reason they want to remove the 3.5mm jack is to save them the need to bundle in a $5 (or less since they order in bulk) hands free headset. Then they can sell you a $100 - $200 bluetooth headset which sounds worse than my Shure.

The iFixit teardowns have proven that there is no battery capacity gain. The space where the jack would have occupied just goes to waste. That was proven when Apple first screwed stupid consumers like you by using the same stupid excuse. Batteries are rectangular shaped, that freed space CANNOT be added to a battery cell unless you show me an odd shaped battery cell component with a strange protrusion.

The ASUS ZenFone 6 has everything - including a 5000mAh battery
while retaining a 3.5mm jack and dedicated SD card slot with 2 x SIM slots. If I buy a flagship phone, you better not cut corners, damn you!

Kid, learnt anything yet dumb dumb?

[S.Yu]

...Because I care more about convenience than quality...

That's your choice, but not mine, not his, not the choice of, I dare say a majority of people around the world for various reasons, mostly cost but the specific reason is irrelevant. The point is it hardly takes a couple bucks to keep the jack (on devices which keep getting more expensive, beyond inflation), which is universally useful and the only real reason for removing it is corporate greed. It's not about how it manages to still work for the minority who prefer BT but how it doesn't for the majority who don't think highly of being forced into BT or dongles with mat charging, yeah I call it mat charging because that's what it is.