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Phones should have FM radio again
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this post was submitted on 02 Oct 2023
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The 90s kid in me yearns for a phone with Fm radio, headphone jack, IR blaster, stylus, memory card slot, slide out keyboard and one of those click on projectors the Motorola phones used to have. I would call it the Donatello and it would be radical.
And a translucent purple case!
I've refused to buy these "flagship" phones that don't have a headphone jack. The 90s kid in me will live on, damnit!
Same I use wired earbuds everyday at work and I refuse to buy a phone without one
I recently bought Bluetooth large headphones and I feel like they're a massive improvement. However, when it comes to earbuds (which I still use a lot when big ones are inconvenient), I would never buy wireless ones. I am afraid that in a lot of them, battery is not easily replaceable (while in my big ones it can be accessed by unscrewing a cover), and the small things would get lost fairly easily.
Also you have to spend a lot more for good bluetooth ear buds compared to wired. Like, you can get a pair of KZ ZSN Pros for 20 bucks or so. They sound great, have nice material quality (they got metal bits on em!), good quality cable, great sounding mic... you get the idea. To get bluetooth ear buds that sound just as good you'd probably have to spend like 80 bucks? And they'd be made of plastic and not have the mic quality anywhere near the KZs. It's just so much easier to get good audio quality with a wire.
I do have a pair of Bluetooth headphones and I use them from time to time. I tend to revert to my wired m50x pretty often just out of personal preference
I have some wired headphones for when I am gaming on the computer, but anything else I use Bluetooth earbuds, and I can't imagine going back to wired ones, never getting the cable caught on things is so freeing. They also have active noise canceling and hear thru which both come in real handy on work sites.
If there was a decent phone with FM radio and an IR blaster, I might pick it over a lot of other ones.
I miss having an IR blaster so much, I was always finding new uses for it. Now I've got little remotes everywhere again
Same, including an IR led is such a simple thing, why did this ever go away. Though I'm pretty sure most Chinese phones still have them, Xiaomi phones do for sure
Basically all the phones with headphone jacks now have abysmal long-term support. Even the fair phone got rid of the headphone jack so they could sell their bullshit wireless headphones
This is why I love Sony phones.
There’s a lot more capability with USB-C audio though. Even entirely discounting Bluetooth, there are plenty of high quality USB-C headphones out there that blow the pants off of what you could do with a 3.5mm jack.
No lol. It all gets converted to an analog signal to drive the headphones. There's no difference in fidelity between 1/8" and USB-C. It's literally the exact same signal.
Except you’re not limited to the phones hardware and space constraints with USB. You can put the DAC, you know the thing that does that conversion, in the headphone end now, whereas you couldn’t with 3.5mm because you can push power over USB. Meaning you have the ability to get headphones with a much better DAC, which will provide better audio quality.
It also frees up space in the phone for more battery, different radios, and other things.
It's a tradeoff of convenience. I want the jack because it's a universal standard that doesn't require external batteries or the right alignment of the stars for proper functionality. Quality has been fine since the dawn of the smartphone, IMO, at least for earbuds. You're still free to use a USB DAC if there's a jack!
Where's our different radios and other things? They just keep adding more camera lenses, and MORE MEGAPIXELS.
Nothing innovative or useful, and now we're forced to buy more shit (adapters) to make other things we already have, work with our phones.
I'll stick with my "mid grade" phone that does all of the same things, but also connects to 3.5mm
PS. This mid grade phone also has USB C if I really wanted a custom DAC, and alternatively I can also charge and listen to things at the same time, with no extra cost
DACs in phones these days are totally fine these days. There really isn't any need for an external one unless you need to drive higher impedance cans. Quality-wise, they're totally fine.
Just use Bluetooth
Why? You can just hire a dude to sing to you as you walk around. Just use a bard, bro.
...Is that a serious offer?
I'm sure that you can find one on craigslist or whatever hell site people use for that these days.
Worse quality audio, vastly more expensive, easier to lose pieces, yet another device I need to think about charging, will need replaced after a while as the batteries swell/die, extra e-waste, occasional pairing problems (especially on PC), etc.
And guess what, if all of that sounds good or doesn't matter to you, you can still use Bluetooth on phones with 3.5mm ports!
As a solution for me, I grabbed a fiio brt3k. Supports the highres Bluetooth codecs and can totally be used as a usbc dac. I got a pair of the samsung beans with my last phone and just hate them, this lets me use any pair of wired headphones I want.
I still want a proper on board dac and a headphone jack but it's what I have to work with
How pray tell would Bluetooth help with having FM radio? The headphone cable is used as the antenna for phones.
Cables doesn't consume battery not get affected by radio interference.
I used to swear by wired headphones.
The audio quality, not needing batteries, the simplicity.
But then I got a decent pair of Bluetooth headphones and I discovered how much wires got in my way. I discovered that the audio quality coming out of phones were garbage regardless of connection type, and the headphones I got would last weeks of daily use on one charge.
Plus I would get a more water proof phone, and I would never have to worry about the headphone jack breaking inside of the port, or my headphones going flying off because I walked past a knob of whatever at just the right height to ruin my day.
I still want phones to have the ports, but on mobile devices I'll never use them. I just want others to be happy too.
I have inside pockets added so that I can deal with the wire issue. Makes for a better place to carry the phone anyway.
My old Moto G3 was the only real waterproof phone, whatever you have I bet you take it out of your pocket to swim, and guess what, it had a headphone jack.
I've an Armor 21, it has the radio, headphone jack, IR blaster and the memory card slot, plus a loud and clear speaker, actual night vision and is rugged as fuck. Base price sub-$250, upcharge for an attachable endoscope.
Hell yes, just jumped on the ulefone train myself!
Just checked it out, this thing looks sick. But it also looks ugly as shit. Is it as ugly as it looks in person? Specifically not a fan of the RGB LED ring thing on the back?
Honest criticisms: It's a bit of a brick for sure. I turned the RGB ring off. The multi-function button isn't as usable as I'd hoped, mostly just a flashlight/screenshot button. The headphone jack and USB port are behind a protected rubber flap, so I keep opening/closing it frequently, but that's to help with being waterproof. While the optional case functions as a good stand for horizontal viewing and for holding, it is inadequate for vertical, and it just would've needed a small internal brace to fix that. The case also blocks their wireless charging connectors, if you were planning to use a dock for that. Attaching the endoscope requires removing a tiny screw. The lack of a bottom button bar has taken some getting used to but I'm fine with it now, the side fingerprint scanner is similar.
Overall I am happy with it. The battery lasts a whole day with high use, it has decent internals for games, the screen and included protector are appropriately unobtrusive, it isn't running a very outdated version of Android. Perhaps most importantly, it should survive my child who likes to throw my phone and my dumbass who left it in my pocket getting in a pool.
You'll be happy to know that I bribed my kids into watching the 1990 TMNT live action movie this weekend. The younger one loved it, but the preteen was full of critical commentary the whole time. Go figure. But hey, I won one of them over to the TMNT side.
how do you know someone was born in the 80s? they'll fucking tell you. you can just like stuff without referencing your stupid metal lunchbox all the time.
I was born in the early 70s. We didn't have anything cool.