Samsung Kills Headphone Jack in Latest Smartphone After Years of Mocking Apple

[curtvaughan]

I concur with what you say. My current phone is a Huawei P20 Pro which has no headphone jack. It has a short USB-C adapter cable to allow use of wired headphones phones which I thought would be fine but I do find it extremely inconvenient.
When exercising on gym equipment I watch downloaded TV programmes on my Galaxy tablet part of the time and to then swap to my free membership of Apple Music on my phone meant getting the adapter from my locker. If I had it ready in my pocket to use I know that it would likely get lost, or I could leave it in the gym equipment holder etc and have to go back and collect. Just a hassle not worth bothering about. Also, the sound quality using the adapter is the poorest I have experienced on a phone for years. So I use my FiiO X3 music player for music in gym now. Of course the sound quality is far better so I need to thank Huawei for giving me the extreme inconvenience that got me back into the routine of carrying my FiiO X3

Indeed, it's hard to get a decent DAC incorporated into a dongle, making your nice wired headphones useless for decent sound. Loss of the jack also makes charging and listening to music simultaneously impossible, or at least a challenge - I suppose someone will come up with a multi-headed dongle to allow both charging and listening through the lightning port. Though my 6S+ still works well, I have purchased both an LG V20 and a V40 after Apple dropped the jack. Both of the LG phones have impressive 4-channel DACs for use via the phone jack, and sound wonderful with nice wired headphones or wired stereo speakers. Guess that's my answer to your FiiO X3!

 

[SteveW928]

Indeed, it's hard to get a decent DAC incorporated into a dongle, making your nice wired headphones useless for decent sound. Loss of the jack also makes charging and listening to music simultaneously impossible, or at least a challenge - I suppose someone will come up with a multi-headed dongle to allow both charging and listening through the lightning port. Though my 6S+ still works well, I have purchased both an LG V20 and a V40 after Apple dropped the jack. Both of the LG phones have impressive 4-channel DACs for use via the phone jack, and sound wonderful with nice wired headphones or wired stereo speakers. Guess that's my answer to your FiiO X3!

Fortunately (from the tests I saw), the 3.5mm dongle Apple has isn't much worse quality than directly plugging into the 3.5mm that used to be built into the phones. But yes, quality is a concern. I'm more annoyed with it from a mechanical/practical nature.

The charging thing is also a problem... I'm guessing even more for the average person than likely many of us. Being a tech-geek, I'm pretty disciplined in my battery charging/usage habits. I'd charge overnight and use the Lightning headphones during the day, etc.

However, my other family members are terrible about it. They often seem to have to have their devices wired into a power outlet. That works currently, as they can be plugged into power via Lightning, as well as headphones via 3.5mm. That isn't going to work with there next round of devices, if there is a next round of devices, as I think they are concerned about it.

About the only time it would impact me, is when I use my phone in my car. I like to plug it in to charge, especially while using the navigation or on trips. But, my car is too old to have Car Play, so it has to be wired via the 3.5mm. Maybe someone makes a cable that does both (allowing charge and audio) but I haven't had to research that yet.

 

[Shanghaichica]

i live on 72nd and 1st, right behind the sotheby auction house, they have a very busy pastry/coffee lounge on their balcony floor which i frequent and they do not have apple pay. a block away from them is a "mom and pop" shop called green gourmet, and a block away is another store called matter of health. they are not so mom and pop but not a franchise either, none of them supports apple pay and these stores are the main stable of upper east side.

the point is, apple pay requires extra equipment for the shop owners to utilize, while samsung pay works with existing technology because it also uses magnetic strip, so long as you can swipe your credit card, you can use samsung pay.

I guess it depends where you live. In the UK we don’t use magnetic strip readers and haven’t used them for well over a decade. So any mobile payments are all nfc based. Therefore Apple Pay, google pay and Samsung pay can all be used in the same places. The only advantage Apple Pay has is that it’s supported by more banks then the other 2. Doesn’t effect me though as my bank supports all 3.

 

[0388631]

well well well, now that the s10 is out, does the person who wrote this article feel silly yet?

A8 vs S10...
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Indeed, it's hard to get a decent DAC incorporated into a dongle, making your nice wired headphones useless for decent sound. Loss of the jack also makes charging and listening to music simultaneously impossible, or at least a challenge - I suppose someone will come up with a multi-headed dongle to allow both charging and listening through the lightning port. Though my 6S+ still works well, I have purchased both an LG V20 and a V40 after Apple dropped the jack. Both of the LG phones have impressive 4-channel DACs for use via the phone jack, and sound wonderful with nice wired headphones or wired stereo speakers. Guess that's my answer to your FiiO X3!

Funny you bring that up. When Apple lost the jack a few years ago, I figured the DAC would still be built into the phone, but that isn't the case at all. The dongle's quality is abysmal.

 

[curtvaughan]

A8 vs S10...
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Funny you bring that up. When Apple lost the jack a few years ago, I figured the DAC would still be built into the phone, but that isn't the case at all. The dongle's quality is abysmal.

Here's a TechRadar review of external DAC's. Of these, the AudioQuest Dragonfly Red gets high marks for use with iOS devices without headphone jacks. Customers get good results by connecting it via a Lightning-to-USB camera kit dongle available from Apple. My guess is that the camera dongle doesn't have its own DAC so you can get a reasonable undistorted digital signal coming into the DAC. BTW, my LG V20/40 phones deliver a better sound experience than my Apple 6S+ via their headphone DAC's. The V-series phones place particular emphasis on their high quality internal DAC's. The 4 channel DAC can be adjusted by the phone's builtin sound software, or turned off if you prefer an external DAC. I hope enough portable sound enthusiasts continue to buy those phones so that LG will continue to deliver.

https://www.techradar.com/news/phon...ree-dacs-will-keep-the-music-spinning-1321629