Unpopular Opinion

But the space for 3.5 jacks don’t take space away from bigger batteries? In most devices, the two are not directly adjacent to one another. And if anything, the removal of the jack is said to make the device thinner, which would mean a longer battery, if anything. Keeping the device thicker would allow for true bigger batteries since the space is there for the jack.

This is a great unpopular opinion and while I hate you for saying this, I do have to agree with you.

I feel this is a very good unpopular opinion, as I think a lot of the annoyance about the fair phone not having a headphone jack is that they bill themselves as a sustainable phone maker who prides themselves as reducing waste and increasing repairability of their devices, something that dongles kinda fly in the face of from an ewaste perspective.

The same target group that they are aiming at generally likes stuff like expandable storage (so that they don't have to upgrade devices just to hold all their photos and stuff) and having a dead simple headphone jack so they can use one of the oldest standard ports in the world to use their headphones.

Since most newer phones have multiple days worth of battery life, I'm more than willing to sacrifice a few hours worth of runtime (maybe even a days worth) just to have a headphone jack. And you could say that I am in the minority of phone users, which is apparently true, however I'd argue I am pretty solidly in the target demographic for a fairphone, which I'm not getting due to the lack of a headphone jack. I instead, got a Sony Xperia 1 V (stupid name for a very nice phone) which offered a 3.5 mm, expandable storage, and decent repairability.

Anyone who claims they can hear the difference between an aux jack and USB-C is lying.

This is something only the nerds complain about. The general public prefer Bluetooth buds. If there was significant demand for phones with AUX, someone would build them.

I 90% agree, I swapped to wireless earbuds about a decade ago when my aux port on whatever phone I had then broke, and I immediately preferred it. I went from buying £10 wired earphones from a supermarket what sounded shit and broke every month to £25 wireless earphones that sounded shit and broke every 6 months, so for me it was am improvement. I was also a chronic "catch headphone cable on every handle" victim, to the point that I immediately preferred the wireless solution. Another thing is when my wireless headphones break, they fucking break; I go with one earbud for about a month then inevitably buy a new pair. When my wired headphones started to degrade, I always fought it, ending up in a losing battle of finding that perfect way to hold them to make them still work. The only downside I have nowadays is when I'm listening to music or a video and realise I've misplaced my phone, which isn't really an issue, just that it was impossible when it was tethered to my ears.

But I'm probably part of a very small minority when it comes to my preference. I carry a compact camera any day I leave the house intending to take photos, so my ideal phone would have one rear camera that prioritises efficiency over quality. I'd have no headphone port, and to be honest, I could live with no ports and wireless charging and data transfer. I've had two smartphones in the last that had their USB-C ports fail as chargers (both galaxy S8s), and I could go years without needing to use the port for anything else. My dream phone would have no ports, one rear camera without a bump, no front camera, minimal tactile side buttons, be pretty slim, have a swappable battery and run a FOSS OS and mostly FOSS apps.

I respect the voices that want a smartphone equivalent to a ThinkPad a lot, but I don't really think it's anywhere near as necessary as a ThinkPad would be, because for most tasks that need something like that, I'd just use that.

That being said, there's two reasons I don't 100% agree. The first is to do with the fairphone specifically. More battery space and better waterproofing don't really apply to a phone where I can swap the battery and it comes apart so much that it's not really competitively waterproof. The second is larger, which is that I can just not use a headphone jack if I prefer wireless, while people who prefer wired are having increasingly few options available on the market.

Cool...so I wanna listen to my headphones and charge my phone. Should I just get fucked then?

The ONLY compromise I would find acceptable, if is they had 2x usb-c ports that could handle data/audio, and one of them dedicated for charging...but guess what, that's more expensive for them compared to a 3.5mm

no

If i were in my mid 20, I probably disagree but not anymore. Wireless earbuds sound quality is good enough for me. Plus, not having wire dangling around me is major convenience. I'd trade a lesser sound quality for no wire in a heartbeat. The first day i went jogging without wired earbud is liberating. Even on treadmill is godsend. I can move around my house easier.

Plus, anyone that is an audiophile probably have a dedicated audio player.

S-tier

Bluetooth 5 is 50Mbit/s it's perfectly fine even more so past 5.4 for latency and 6.x. even better. So personally for me it's good enough now. The battery life on my WF Sony earbuds has been enough to not annoy me at all. So, it's better than a tangling cord.

last time i bought a phone, the store had models with and without jack, i like choices, no reason to want them sell units with only the features i need