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Google Replaces Its USB-C Headphone Adapter With a More Expensive Version (theverge.com)
Google is now selling an updated headphone adapter that's supposed to be more responsive and drain less of your phone's battery. But these minor improvements come at a cost. The new dongle costs $12, whereas the old dongle sold for just $9. "That also means Google's headphone adapter now costs more than Apple's equivalent adapter for the iPhone," The Verge notes. From the report: Physically, though, the dongle is nearly identical to the USB-C to 3.5mm adapter that Google has been selling since last October: this new version is just a hair smaller in almost every dimension. Google says the new dongle will connect to your phone ever so slightly faster, and, more importantly, it's supposed to draw less power, translating to 38 percent more playback time. Android Police first spotted the update.
If I get modded down as a troll, so be it, but I feel it needs to be said.
Not everything that shows up on The Verge needs to be a headline on Slashdot. Especially an article tries to make a $3 markup on a headphone adapter sound like an assault on consumers.
Let me know when you find an article analyzing the circuitry of these headphone adapters and explains exactly how modifying something as simple as a headphone adapter can extend battery life by 38%.
Can I offer a wild-ass guess that increasing buffer space on the DAC chip can allow the phone to extend the time between wakeups and thereby spend more time sleeping, extending battery life?
Google is now selling an updated headphone adapter that's supposed to be more responsive and drain less of your phone's battery.
A standard 3.5mm headphone jack is *really* responsive and doesn't use *any* battery power. Just sayin' ...
And for those vendors crowing about better water-proofing w/o this jack, my Kyocera Hydro VIBE from 2014 has a standard headphone jack and is "Certified waterproof for IPX5, and IPX7. Immersible for up to 30 minutes in up to 3.28 feet (1 meter)."
It must have been something you assimilated. . . .
An single alkaline D cell has over 18W/hr of energy, That's at least a 4600mAh 3.85V cellphone battery. The Pixel 2 has a 2700mAh battery.
The "talk time" rating is about 16 hours, that's while running an active 3G session for voice. That's about 600mW average power consumption.
That's not a whole lot of power and I assume playing MP3's is much less power than a voice call. Apparently the 3G performance of the Pixel 2 is not very good.
It's also not just the dongle consuming power. It's the USB host inside the phone as well. If the new chip in the new dongle is better at USB power management, that means less power consumed by the phone while it's in use. It probably has a more efficient amplifier too.