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[–] 82 points 1 year ago* (68 children)

Removable batteries are coming back, as they become mandatory in the EU in 2027.
Or you can already get one with a Fairphone (which also has SD card slot).
As for the headphone jack, I'm afraid it won't come back. Bluetooth alternatives are far better these days (I got both, so I know from experience), and good adapters (like Apple one) are barely more than $10.

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  • [–] 32 points 1 year ago (4 children)
  • [–] 6 points 1 year ago*

    2026 will be the year of the Linux phone!

    or 2027. Or some Chinese variant of android on Chinese/Taiwan phone that allows sideloading, perhaps with alternate playstore and maps. I don't yet understand how draconian this actually gets implemented, but death of android/google (to me) is possible. If hardware is good enough, then android emulator will be fine for legacy apps.

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  • [–] 18 points 1 year ago (3 children)

    They have to be user removable, not hot-removable. Take a FP6 as an example, you have to remove a couple of screw to get to it, then another couple to remove it. What are forbidden will be glued batteries and back panels.

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  • [–] 1 point 1 year ago (2 children)

    That’s convenient to swap a battery but I feel like my phone is more likely to get soaked than need a battery swap at any time in the next two years. The FP6 is IP55 rated.

    Looks like FP6 battery is £45 and iPhone 14 is £60-£90 depending where you buy it. I know I can get that done in the next hour or two where I live, so I don’t see it as a big deal.

    The replaceable camera feature is more compelling because a broken front iPhone camera can effectively brick the device.

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  • [–] 3 points 1 year ago

    A replaceable usb-c port is great too. My previous Nokia 8.1 died because of that, and my previous FP5 needed a replacement after 2 years of use.

    But I agree that Fairphone have work to do on waterproofing their phones. It was hard with the previous hand removable back panel, but now that they added screws to the back panel, it wouldn't be that much of a a stretch to add some o-rings to further waterproof it. I'm sure they could get it to IP66 rather easily, maybe IP67 with a little more work.

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  • [–] 3 points 1 year ago

    My phone is IP68 and you can replace the battery. Does require removing some screws to get the case off but I think that would pretty much be required to waterproof it anyway.

    Shame they discontinued Cat phones

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  • [–] 124 points 1 year ago (37 children)

    Bluetooth alternatives are far better these days

    Disputable.

    • they are cable-less, thus need to be charged separately
    • they are cable-less, thus it is easier to lose them
    • bluetooth implementation is a potential security vulnerability
    • transmission by radio will always be less energy efficient than transmission by wire
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  • [–] 19 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

    Missed a few things.

    • They are cable-less, thus they use a battery and have a shorter lifespan
    • The batteries they use are generally not user replaceable so they turn into e-waste rather quickly
    • Due to the reduced bluetooth bandwidth, call quality is crap
    • Sound quality is worse than a wired headphone that costs the same
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  • [–] 39 points 1 year ago (1 child)

    i'm a musician, have a trained ear and even with mild tinnitus have yet to see any BT audio transmission that matches the fidelity of cables.

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  • [–] 6 points 1 year ago (2 children)

    I have two devices, one is my phone, and one only plays music. I only ever use my phone as my phone, and my music device as my music device in my car, and both run over Bluetooth.

    It is a crapshoot as to which role my car will assign to which device. Sometimes I have to put my phone in airplane mode so that the car won't try to assign it the media player role in Bluetooth settings. I'm not impressed.

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  • [–] 2 points 1 year ago* (22 children)

    they are cable-less, thus need to be charged separately

    Not a major drawback, IMO.

    they are cable-less, thus it is easier to lose them

    True, but I haven't lost any in the something like 6 years I've been using them.

    bluetooth implementation is a potential security vulnerability

    What's your threat model? Who's going to be attacking your security via your headphones? What happens if they succeed?

    IMO this is a pretty ridiculous drawback, it's like saying "wired headphones are worse because the wire can be used as a garrote", which is true, but not an actual drawback for 99.999% of people.

    transmission by radio will always be less energy efficient than transmission by wire

    So what?

    IMO the drawbacks of wired headphones are:

    • The cable often gets tangled, and it's a pain in the ass to untangle it
    • The cable can often get snagged on things, and if that happens the best thing that can happen is that the headphones can go flying out of your ears. The worst thing that can happen is that the phone goes flying out of your pocket and smashes on the ground.
    • The cables can get dirty and frayed, and if they get too frayed they can break or get worn down so they have an iffy connection.
    • Even when the cable isn't tangled, just arranging the wire so it's out of the way, long enough to get to your ears, but not so long it gets tangled can be frustrating.
    • Trying to use your phone for anything else while your headphones are attached can be a problem. Say you want to take a picture of something, or pay for something using NFC, you have to be careful of the cable. If you had the cable tucked into your shirt or zipped up in your jacket so it's out of the way, now the cable might not be long enough anymore.
    • Because of the wire, you're limited in where you can put your phone, and your head has to always be within a short distance to your phone. With a wireless headset you can choose to put the phone in a knapsack if that's more convenient, and when you put down the knapsack you can take a few steps away from it without losing your connection and interrupting whatever you're listening to.
    • If you're doing something like working in the kitchen while listening to music or a podcast, you can't put your phone down on the counter and use it to look at a recipe, because as soon as you have to move to go get another ingredient, or to move from the cutting board to the sink, you have to pick the phone up again. And that can be a real issue if you have goop on your hands and you're moving to the sink to wash them off.
    • In cold weather / winter you might want to have your phone in a jacket or something. If you go inside and take the jacket off you either have to pause things while you transfer the phone to another pocket and rearrange the wire, or you have to do this complicated dance where you clear the wire and move the phone without accidentally yanking the wire out of the phone or out of your ears. With a wireless headset you just take the phone and move it to a new pocket whenever that's convenient.
    • The headphone wire is a potential personal security vulnerability as a ninja can use it to garrote you.

    The drawbacks for a wireless headset are:

    • They tend to have batteries that can't be replaced, so eventually they lose their ability to hold a charge and need to be replaced. It can get really annoying to use them when the batteries are starting to fail and they hold less than an hour of charge.
    • They tend to be much more expensive than wired headphones.
    • Wireless buds are easier to lose, and easier to drop. If you drop them they can bounce and roll under things, or into the street or who knows where.
    • They do eventually run out of charge, and you do have to charge them, and sometimes they can be low on charge / out of charge when you want to use them.
    • There's a fair amount of lag, which can be annoying when you're trying to skip commercials on podcasts and so-on.
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  • [–] 7 points 1 year ago (21 children)

    First of all, you're forgetting that the actual problem is that the headphone jack does not require you remove bluetooth from the device. The issue here is giving user less options and more costly "solutions".

    The cable often gets tangled, and it's a pain in the ass to untangle it

    Git gud. It's not that hard to roll up the cable so that it doesn't tangle. Worst case scenario, you can buy a small case.

    The cable can often get snagged on things, and if that happens the best thing that can happen is that the headphones can go flying out of your ears. The worst thing that can happen is that the phone goes flying out of your pocket and smashes on the ground.

    Run the cable through your shirt. Problem solved.

    The cables can get dirty and frayed, and if they get too frayed they can break or get worn down so they have an iffy connection.

    Use headphones with a replaceable wire. That way you can use a cable with or without a mic or use different lentghs. Hell, you can even make your own and they're cheap. Even if the wire isn't easily replaceable, most headphones can be fixed with a bit of patience and a soldering iron.

    Even when the cable isn't tangled, just arranging the wire so it's out of the way, long enough to get to your ears, but not so long it gets tangled can be frustrating.

    You're just doing mental gymnastics at this point.

    Trying to use your phone for anything else while your headphones are attached can be a problem. Say you want to take a picture of something, or pay for something using NFC, you have to be careful of the cable. If you had the cable tucked into your shirt or zipped up in your jacket so it's out of the way, now the cable might not be long enough anymore.

    Or you can, I don't know, unplug the headphones for 2 seconds.

    Because of the wire, you're limited in where you can put your phone, and your head has to always be within a short distance to your phone. With a wireless headset you can choose to put the phone in a knapsack if that's more convenient, and when you put down the knapsack you can take a few steps away from it without losing your connection and interrupting whatever you're listening to.

    Redundant. Also, put your phone in your pocket and stop whinin'.

    If you're doing something like working in the kitchen while listening to music or a podcast, you can't put your phone down on the counter and use it to look at a recipe, because as soon as you have to move to go get another ingredient, or to move from the cutting board to the sink, you have to pick the phone up again. And that can be a real issue if you have goop on your hands and you're moving to the sink to wash them off.

    My man, are you allergic to speakers? You're cooking in a kitchen. Lose the headphones.

    In cold weather / winter you might want to have your phone in a jacket or something. If you go inside and take the jacket off you either have to pause things while you transfer the phone to another pocket and rearrange the wire, or you have to do this complicated dance where you clear the wire and move the phone without accidentally yanking the wire out of the phone or out of your ears. With a wireless headset you just take the phone and move it to a new pocket whenever that's convenient.

    Skill issue. Run your wire underneath your jacket and you won't have this """problem""".

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  • [–] 9 points 1 year ago (11 children)

    You're like one of those people from infomercials who is unrealistically bad at simple low-skill activities

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  • [–] 1 point 1 year ago (4 children)

    Replaceable batteries are superior, cope

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  • [–] 0 points 1 year ago (3 children)

    Yes, they are. Glad you're finally on board the "batteries beat wires" train. Choo choo.

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  • [–] 1 point 1 year ago

    You're missing the point again. It's not one or the other. We used to have BOTH. I use BT headphones day to day because I like the convenience, like you. However there plenty of times I wished I had an aux out or forgot my BT buds and wanted to use a pair of headphones I had at the desk.

    We deserve BOTH.

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  • [–] 2 points 1 year ago* (5 children)

    Great arguments! /s

    Still no reason to not just have both options.

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  • [–] 1 point 1 year ago (3 children)

    And yet headphone ports are on all the cheap phones and lacking from the high end phones. Your argument just doesn't hold water.

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  • [–] 1 point 1 year ago (1 child)

    I can't even follow your arguments anymore.

    As a user, I want as many options as possible, but if I can get a phone that's $100 cheaper because it doesn't have a headphone port, I'll definitely choose that option.

    You're the one that implied headphone jacks add cost to phones. I'm saying that they don't, and whatever cost they do add is minuscule. The implication that any cost savings is being passed to you is laughable.

    Look, they killed the jack because they could save a couple bucks of design time and get a few cubic millimeters of space, but most importantly they could softly force their users to buy wireless headphones (maybe even the ones they sell and bundle?!). The former outcomes being happy accidents in order push the latter. It's win win for them, and lose for the customer.

    They know that their price concious customers are still using wired headphone and unlikely to take them up on their bundle, so they keep including it there. The affluent ones are the ones with cash to burn and little care for this issue. I get you like BT headphones, so do I, but there's simply no good defense for the 3.5mm removal other than shilling.

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  • [–] 1 point 1 year ago

    You're the one that implied headphone jacks add cost to phones.

    They do.

    I'm saying that they don't, and whatever cost they do add is minuscule.

    Ok.

    The implication that any cost savings is being passed to you is laughable.

    It is, but it isn't a major savings. But, it's hard to know because the pricing of phones isn't very transparent.

    Look, they killed the jack because they could save a couple bucks of design time and get a few cubic millimeters of space

    Yes....

    most importantly they could softly force their users to buy wireless headphones

    Why would they care?

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  • [–] 1 point 1 year ago (1 child)

    Now when you want to take your phone out of your pocket to take a picture of something or scan it for an NFT sale you can't do that easily

    Sure you can. Just unplug the headphones.

    And start blasting whatever you're listening to to the whole world?

    You're either trolling or you've never used wired headphones. Playback stops automatically when you unplug a wired headphone. It's the same thing when you disconnect a bluetooth headphone.

    You're cooking in a kitchen. There are loud fans, loud kettles. Why would you use a speaker that you have to turn way up to blast over all that noise?

    Wtf? Lol. If you're kitchen is that loud, something's wrong with it.

    or doing NFT transactions. You really haven't thought this through, have you?

    Yeah, you're either trolling or a very special kind of person.

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  • [–] 1 point 1 year ago

    Sure you can. Just unplug the headphones.

    First you have to stop whatever you're listening to or you start playing it on a speaker for everyone. Doing that is an annoyance that you don't need to put up with if you just use wireless headphones.

    Playback stops automatically when you unplug a wired headphone

    Maybe it does today, I don't know, I haven't used wired headphones in many years. Back in the day it didn't.

    Wtf? Lol. If you're kitchen is that loud, something's wrong with it.

    If you are kitchen is quiet, you really should be using the fan to get the smoke and food smells out of the kitchen. Maybe if you're just making pop-tarts then it isn't a big deal, but if you actually ever do any serious cooking you'll discover that it gets loud.

    Yeah, you're either trolling or a very special kind of person.

    Why are you so scared of the modern world? Is it that you're too confused by it all? Can't handle touchscreens? Scared by https? It's ok man, just take a course. You'll learn to live in the present, not the past.

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  • [–] 33 points 1 year ago (9 children)

    Bluetooth alternatives aren't better, that's laughable.

    You cant buy beyerdynamics DT-990s with Bluetooth, you cant get Sennheiser HD 490 Pros with Bluetooth, you cant buy Audeze LCD-5s with Bluetooth. I could go on and on but you get the point. Good headphones don't use Bluetooth.

    The nice headphones a lot of us have had for years, well before the headphone jack was removed don't have Bluetooth.

    So when you say they're better 1. You're wrong. And 2. You're missing the point.

    If you prefer Bluetooth, fine, but phones with headphone jacks still have Bluetooth. You're only ok with it because it doesn't effect you and I think that's appalling.

    Imagine phone manufacturers remove the ability to use Bluetooth headphones and I say "that's fine, wired headphones are better anyway". It's not about that, it's about removing your freedom to choose and it should NOT be tolerated

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  • [–] 14 points 1 year ago (4 children)

    citing bose and sony vs sennheiser audeze and beyerdynamics, dude, you don't know headphones

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  • [–] 7 points 1 year ago (1 child)

    I work in IT and pairing bluetooth is sometimes so finnicky i give up for a few days. I can accept that I'm not that great at IT but I don't think 99% of people don't have these problems.

    And it's not a thing you do one time, most of these gadgets need re-pairing every sone time for whatever reason.

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  • [–] 1 point 1 year ago

    Oh I'll agree that sometimes Bluetooth pairing can be finicky.

    But the person I replied to was talking about how Bluetooth is not good enough for audiophile quality headphones. But most people don't care and can't even notice the difference.

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  • [–] 10 points 1 year ago

    I never had one of my wired earbuds fall off the platform at the train station and disappear in the gravel, nor did I ever have isues with forgetting to charge them, let alone their case being brolen and not charging at all. And if I want to switch my favourite headphones over from my PC to my phone, I'm really glad my old phone still has a jack.

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  • [–] 15 points 1 year ago*

    No, bluetooth is not better. Bluetooth has latency which is bad for anything that needs realtime audio, like video games or any kind of live performance. It also runs on 2.4 like every other electronic Wireless devices making it prone to interference. And it's yet another device to keep charged all the time.

    USB C is also inferior because you need dongles which increase complexity of your setup, it's more prone to failures. Like audio cutting off every x minutes because connection is just slightly loose or other electronic gremlins. I'm saying this having just had a gig and the MD's phone we relied on for the metronome started acting up during the performance not recognizing the dongle until a reboot.

    Audio jacks were simple, analog, worked perfectly fine and delivered high quality audio. What we have now is overengineered slop that is less reliable and more expensive.

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  • [–] 4 points 1 year ago

    I have a fp4 and it is VERY annoying to not have jack(I don't wanna use bluetooth because jack works, doesn't need a battery and is low tech), so now I only listen to music on my computer, but I'm planning on making an mp3 player with a raspberry pi pico.

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  • [–] 1 point 1 year ago

    The removable batteries coming back would also impact the iPhone, which actually respects user privacy because Apple is not a marketing company. Apple is a products and services company, they sell tech devices and make a lot of money on services like Apple Music and TV+ and such. It's expensive for a reason; you can even take the encryption keys out of Apple's hands for iCloud so you genuinely are fully protected

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  • [–] 1 point 1 year ago

    They won’t become “removable” like in ye old Nokia days. It’s not like you can carry extra batteries and just swap them on the go.

    They just have to be swappable without special tools or specialist equipment.

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