(Posting this here rather than [email protected] as it’s a quite general question)

I had a look at the GSM Arena phone finder, and it the choice is getting smaller and smaller every year (only 43 phones from 2023, reviewed by the site, had a jack)

The remaining ones are mostly

  • Xiaomi Redmi
  • Zenfones
  • Sony
  • Samsung entry range

So, has everyone switched to Bluetooth / USB-C dongles, or are there still a few people holding to the jack until the very end?

    • @[email protected]OPEnglish
      1•8 months ago

      I don’t consider €350+ phones entry level.

      Neither do I? I mentioned the 200€ and 109€ as entry level

      That’s mid-range for me.

      Agreed

      if people would’ve bought flagships with headphone jacks during the transition

      They didn’t really gave them a choice. As per your article, between 2019 and 2020, Samsung dropped the jack on the S-line. People who upgrade phones regularly tend to stick to a brand they know due to convenience, so indeed most of the people wouldn’t have dropped years of satisfying Samsung experience for a jack, especially as phones came with Bluetooth earbuds.

      The loud majority who does care can protest the change by buying from other brands that do sport headphone jacks.

      I tried, I have been researching this topic extensively in the last few months, and when you add on top of that I prefer phones less than 160 mm high, the possibilities are very limited.

      Which I get from a manufacturer perspective: smaller phones sell less (as their audience tends to keep them longer), and most of the people don’t care about the jack. But thinking that a specific demographic can influence the whole market doesn’t seem realistic.

      Now that I think about it, even the Fairphone dropped the jack…