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Google Slashes Prices of Its USB-C Headphone Dongle Following Minor Outrage (mashable.com)
At its hardware event last week, Google unveiled its two new flagship smartphones: the Pixel 2 and Pixel 2 XL. While these devices feature high-end specifications and the latest version of Android, they both lack headphone jacks, upsetting many consumers who still rely heavily on wired headphones. To add insult to injury, Google announced a USB-C adapter for a whopping price of $20 -- that's $11 more than Apple's Lightning to 3.5mm adapter. This resulted in some minor outrage and caused Google to rethink its decision(s). As reported by 9to5Google, Google decided to slash the price of the dongle by over 50%. It is now priced at a more reasonable $9.
I am not a audiophile per say, but I have yet to find a decent pair of bluetooth headphones that don't have connection issues, or quality problems with audio. In fact I can easily spend half the amount on a pair of wired headphones and get far better quality audio then bluetooth. I would also point out that since a smartphone has built in speakers, all the hardware is there for a headphone jack. In reality this is not about saving parts costs, making phones thinner.
The dongle is admitting that people still use wired headphones, but that the obsessive competitive design of winning the thinnest smartphone is winning over practical use. I would not be surprised to see a phone maker take advantage and make a phone with a 1/8th jack and market as such.
Has anyone figured why they dropped support for good old audio out port?
Apple did it to sell overpriced accessories, but what are google's motives?
PS
If other manufacturers follow this idiotic move, "having analog audio out socket" will become top point in my "phone must have it" list, above OLED screen and SD card.
Newsflash: Google drops price of headphone adapter from 2% to 1% of the price of the phone. I agree that $20 is way too steep for the adapter, and $9 seems more reasonable (though it should probably be more like $5). However, Google's original attitude towards pricing of the dongle really just underscores how overpriced the phone is in the first place.
One superthin without headphone jack. One slightly thicker with headphone jack and a slightly bigger battery - which you need if you consume a lot of media on your phone anyway. I have a non-superthin Samsung smartphone with headphone jack. I am not interested in superthin - as long as the phone fits in my pocket, its okay.
Why did the chicken cross the road? Because Elon Musk put an AI chip in its head.
Google misses the issue, AGAIN.
It isn't the price of the adapter, it is the fact that you have to have one in the first place.
...but you will never know what I am listening with my headphones!
I just saw my nephew addicted to watching video on 5 inch iphone. The phone runs down to 5% charge. Now he can't use both head phones and the charger at the same time. Charges for a few minutes, gets very edgy and nervous, connects his headphones for a few minutes, keeps switching between charger and the headphones.
In some sense it is a welcome thing, forces him to break staring at that little screen for hours on end. Even with this forced break, he is going to end up with severe myopia, -15 diopters before he turns 15.
Coming back to Google Dongle, does this have this severe myopia prevention feature by not allowing charging and listening at the same time?
sed -e 's/Chuck Norris/Rajnikant/g' joke > fact
Bluetooth headphones is not there yet.
It is a nightmare to figure out what sound quality you get in bluetooth headphones/speakers today.
To send/resive audio via bluetooth you only need to support SBS audio. That is has bad quality compared to bitrate..
Some support MP3/AAC/LDAC/Apt-X/Apt-X HD/What ever.
The problem is that both sender and reciver have to support the same format for it to work. You can't just get some headphones that support Apt-X if your phone do not support it.
And most of the time it is almost imposibel to see what the phone/headphones/speaker is supporting. So it's but and hope for the best. Or spent a lot of time seatching the web to see if anyone have an anwser.
And after all that. Then there is also how good is the DAC in the speaker/headphones.
Most phones today have a good DAC. But headphones can support all the best audio codecs. And have a crap DAC. So it sounds bad anyway.
And putting a good DAC in the speaker/headphones also bumps the price. And then you have an extra thing to recharge.
Sure in the future when they have better standards for sounds. And you are sure you get something good. No matter what you buy.
But we are not there yet.
So why remove the 3.5 Jack stik. It works. And it has yet get a usefull replacement.
Dropping the floppy for CD-Drive and laver for USB stik.
Sure. The CD was an improvment over the floppy. And the USB stik had been improved a lot when it replaced optick drives in computers.
It would have faild if they did it when we only had the USB 1 standard. But it got better and storgage bigger and chaper. So you could do the switch.
They are including one in the box with the phone. You'll only need to buy one after you lose that.
if a user asks for it. A usb-c to headphone dongle came with my Essential PH-1. It's been a month, and I still haven't used it (the dongle).
Perhaps they've done some market studies and determined that there are a lot more folks out there that don't care than who would switch brands/phones due to the slight inconvenience of having a dongle.
I haven't used wired headphones/pods with any of my phones in years.
Hard to figure why it should even cost that much. Classic example of asking too much in order to make the second offer seem reasonable.
Twinstiq, game news
Interesting that $9 is considered a "reasonable" price. A lot of people must be conditioned by the overpriced cables they local stores charge.
Hint: $20 for a 1m HDMI cable is not a reasonable price at all. A reasonable price would be around $2, if a shop sells for more they are just ripping you off because they can.
I doubt there is any amazing tech in these that would justify a price much above $2 either, certainly not $9.
Then again, it's not like the phones themselves offer anything that would even remotely justify their price either, so it's just consistent.
Why would anyone buy a bluetooth headset if they're fine using a cable?
Well, I'm going to go out on a limb here and say that the answer to your question is basically because if they want to listen to their music, they are going to have to buy a BT headset, or at least a dongle until the industry transitions (sooner or later; my bet is sooner) to a portless phone. The trend is pretty clear: Ports are going away, and have been for awhile. Phones that don't have physical ports can be cheaper to make, are easier to ruggedize, and are significantly thinner, which are things that customers are telling them they really, really, want. Ruggedization is important to some customers, but not all of them, so that is not that much of a driver, but the other two points are. Not having to accommodate dead space in the form of a 9.6mm^2 circular hole in the edge of the case hits two out of three selling points for the customer.
But requiring a splitter to charge and listen at the same time is really annoying, and a dealbreaker for my purposes.
Oh sure, there's wireless charging... but this can be less convenient than wired charging in some cases... particularly if you are regularly charging from usb in many different locations, because then you are having to carry the charger around everywhere you go as well.
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
There's a middle ground - the $200 - $300 price range. Like the Sennheiser HD600, which deliver a sound quality that is pretty amazing, but may require a headphone pre-amp (from $30 up) to use on a phone. Also, at the end of the $50 price range, there's quality stuff like the Sennheiser PX 100, which works well with my mobile phone with no add-ons. I compared the sound of the PX 100 to more expensive bluetooth sets (like Bose) and think it's far superior. Also, I really like that the back of my current android phone comes off so I can exchange battery & sim card, so I wouldn't buy a Pixel anyway... Disclosure: I bought both models with my own money and am using them a lot. I have no relation to Sennheiser other than being a happy customer, other brands may be just as good.
upsetting many consumers who still rely heavily on wired headphones
Then don't buy it.
It might also have something to do with generic ones selling for $2 on Amazon and eBay.
Things I will never buy: 1. Apple products
2. Any mobile device without a 3.5mm headphone jack
3. Dell or Alienware products
There's just no legitimate reason to remove the jack. If you can fit a USB-C connector in there, you can fit a fucking headphone jack too.
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