OnePlus 6T Trades the Headphone Jack For Better Battery Life (techradar.com)

OnePlus CEO Carl Pei confirmed to TechRadar that the OnePlus 6T won't have a headphone jack. Instead, it will feature a larger battery that will be "substantial enough for users to realize." From the report: Our first line of questioning was obvious. Why? Why ditch the jack? Why ditch it now? For Pei, it's about timing, and creating the best smartphone experience. "When we started OnePlus, we set out to make the best possible smartphone, but making a great phone doesn't mean putting every component available into the device," he said. "You've got to make decisions that optimize the user experience, and understand that at times things that provide user value can also add friction. "We also had to think about the negative side [of removing the headphone jack] for our users. We found 59% of our community already owned wireless headphones earlier this year - and that was before we launched our Bullets Wireless headphones. "If we were to do that [remove the jack] two years ago, the percentage [of wireless headphones owners] would have been much lower and it would have caused a lot of friction for our users."

Pei went on to explain that there are user benefits to the removal of the port, which should bring some comfort to OnePlus fans already pouring one out for the headphone jack. "By removing the jack we've freed up more space, allowing us to put more new technology into the product," he said. "One of the big things is something our users have asked us for, improved battery life." Pei wouldn't be drawn on what the "new technology" will be, but we already know the OnePlus 6T will feature an in-display fingerprint scanner, which will eat up some of the space left by the exiting jack. Pei did mention they will include an adapter in the box to allow users to use wired headphone.

Comments

Personally

[Cesare Ferrari]

It's one of the only features I use on my feature phone. You could take out the cameras, GPS, motion sensors and probably half a dozen other bits i've never heard of let alone used, but the headphone socket is important to me.

Re:Personally

[msauve]

OnePlus is now off the list.

They're idiots, all. It's not a "headphone jack," it's an analog audio jack. It works with headphones, but having bluetooth headphones doesn't help with connecting a phone to an older car or a stereo. Nor does bluetooth support the quality of a direct connection. BT audio is more complex, costly, and inconvenient. And I'd rather deal with a cord which has to go all the way from my ears to my pocket than have to worry about keeping the non-replaceable batteries in headphones charged (yet more planned obsolescence). A line level analog audio signal is universal - audio is analog, after all.

And the "we traded a jack for more battery life" is pure and simple bullshit. Compare the size of a jack to the size of a cell phone battery, and one can easily understand that the additional volume from removing the jack can add no more than a couple of percent to the battery capacity. "Pei did mention they will include an adapter in the box to allow users to use wired headphone." Guess what? The DAC in that adapter sucks way more battery than the infinitesimal bit gained by removing the jack.

Just make the damn phone thicker, which will allow a real increase in battery size, and also make it easier to hold. And make it a user replaceable battery instead of designed in obsolescence. Finally, no one outside of your marketing department gives a shit about edge-to-edge screens. Notches must die. Bezels make phones easier to hold. Smartphones all basically look the same, with only minor differences. Stop pretending there's any "style" involved, and stop doing stupid stuff like removing functionality so you can pretend there is.

Re:Personally

[Oswald McWeany]

OnePlus is now off the list.

They're idiots, all. It's not a "headphone jack," it's an analog audio jack. It works with headphones, but having bluetooth headphones doesn't help with connecting a phone to an older car or a stereo.

Exactly- the average car on the road is now 10 years old- they're lasting longer these days. I have a 6 year old car- I intend to keep it at least another 6 years (3 average phone lifespans for most people). It doesn't have Bluetooth. I use my analog out every single day.

    I applaud a better battery- I'd applaud even more if they made the battery bigger without taking away a headphone jack. Make the phone 2mm thicker or give a bezel- that's a better trade off than removing the headphone jack. How much space does a headphone jack really take up. I'm sure this is more about the pointless "who can make the thinnest phone" dick swinging match than it is about needing space for a battery.

Re:Personally

[msauve]

"Spend a few bucks for one of these:"

Whoosh. "Provides up to 10 HOURS playing time and only need 1.5 HOURS to charge it fully.(NOTE:Please charging Mpow with the equipped charging cable and do not charge for a long time.)" That's butt ugly and it doesn't even support AptX, so it's way worse than an analog connection. I can see why it's good for a Jeep.

Re:Personally

[msauve]

Someone needs to come out with a new phone with a user replaceable battery, and market it as "wireless supercharging."

So my next phone will not be a OnePlus

[RenHoek]

As the title says, it means my next phone will be another brand then... To bad since my current OnePlus5 is a great phone for a good price.

Instead of losing the jack, I'd rather see them add waterproofing, FM radio and an IR blaster.

Wireless headphone so called "experience"

[guacamole]

Wireless headphones experience is still crap. I have tried many wireless headphones, and despite paying around 150USD each time, I always ended with headphones that are less comfortable and sound worse than my wired 40 dollar Koss PortraPro or 60 dollar Sennheiser PX100-ii. Moreover, these super duper "advanced" and expensive headsets have a tendency to stop working within a year. I refuse to carry that stupid dongle. It's just another item that will get lost and it's just plain inconvenient to use.

As for Oneplus, all I can say hasta la vista. It was good while it lasted. I recall the first Oneplus One from 2014 which had flagship build and specs for just 300USD. Now that was a value. But now that Oneplus is another +500USD phone that follows the worst trends, whether in pricing, cheating in benchmarks, or deleting the headphone jack, all I can do is stop considering Oneplus for my next purchase.

Re: Wireless headphone so called "experience"

[Ol Olsoc]

Oldest is irrelevant. If it works, it's used. It works.

My parents had a rotary phone until the mid - 90's

It's an industry standard.

So was their rotary phone.

The fragile comment is also worthless. Fragile as compared to what? I have never broken a headphone jack on a device.

I've replaced many of them over the years. The 1/8th or 3.5 mm socket is a remarkably weak device. The biggest issue is that the simple metal springs are not robust, being a scaled down version of the ubiquitous 1/4 inch plug and jack. It is one of the weakest points on any device it is installed on. Professionals use them only if there is no other choice, because they are a very unreliable component.

Either way, he (like you) should cite some real research to validate your assertions.

SRSLY? Do your own research. This is like demanding that I prove that the sun isn't a burning lump of coal. Or claiming that a smartphone camera is better than a professional DSLR, so I have to prove it is. I've repaired or tossed a lot of devices small audio jacks over the years. Believe or do not, I hardly care.

What BS

[DrXym]

A headphone jack takes up a neglible amount of space compared to its use. I don't see any legitimate argument for dumping it.

Don't believe it

[markdavis]

Sorry, I don't believe it. The footprint of a headphone jack next to the USB jack isn't going to give any meaningful improvement in battery size opportunity.

How about make the stupid phone 1 or 2 mm *THICKER*. That would make a huge difference in cubic space available for a bigger battery. And now poll consumers- which would you rather have:

1) Crazy thin with headphone jack and X battery life

2) Crazy thin with NO headphone jack and X + 20 min more battery life

3) 2mm thicker with headphone jack and X + 20 HOURS more battery life.

Of course, I am making up the numbers, but you get the idea.

Congratulations, idiots.

[AbRASiON]

You just traded my interest, for lack of interest.

Don't follow some idiot fad from Apple. Possible the most ubiquitous plug across the entire planet and you omit it?

Power varies in shape, voltage across the planet.
USB? I dunno, it might rival the audio jack, maybe for install numbers.

I don't want to charge headphones, I don't want to use USB-C headphones, I want to use the plethora (plethora!) of headphones I have, I want to be able to use /dirt cheap/ crap spare ones in my work drawer or work bag. I want to be able to pay $5 at the airport for a crap pair when I forget mine at home before a fight.

I have no interest in bluetooth / wireless audio. I LIKE the cable.

Nope, no sale. I will not.

Re:Bad arguments

[fluffernutter]

Also, bluetooth sound quality is compromised because the bluetooth audio signal is compressed. Play a FLAC on your phone if you want, it won't get to the headphones.

Not that common

[sjbe]

Don't follow some idiot fad from Apple. Possible the most ubiquitous plug across the entire planet and you omit it?

A fad indicates that it will eventually pass. Tens of millions of phones are being sold every year without the headphone jack. It's not coming back so I suggest you get over it. It's a single tasking and relatively large connector which makes very little sense on a machine with a tight space budget and acceptable replacement options available.

USB? I dunno, it might rival the audio jack, maybe for install numbers.

"Rival"? Try vastly exceeds. Almost every low power device I have has a USB port. Computers, cameras, headphones, chargers, mice, keyboards, tablets, smartphones, etc. You know how many of my devices have a 3.5mm audio jack? Maybe 3. My oldest car, an ancient amplifier and one of my older PC monitors. Maybe I'm forgetting one but you get the point. You are hugely overestimating the ubiquity of this particular port. If you need it there are plenty of ways to connect to one even with devices that don't have the port. Bluetooth and USB adaptors are widely available and cheap.

I have no interest in bluetooth / wireless audio. I LIKE the cable.

That's a perfectly valid choice but please don't pretend the rest of us should have to go along with it.

Bluetooth mods vs. all other uses

[DrYak]

You can mod your own car.
(Personally, I've added two such gadgets, a similar to my mother-in-law's car, and one using the car manufacturer's proprietary connect on my mother's car)

But you won't by yourself modify every single analog only device, specially all those that you don't own :
  - rental cars (these tend to be old and with as few options as possible)
  - the speaker set at a friend's appartment when they throw a party, and some iPhone user want to stream their playlist instead of the friend's laptop's.

Also, bluetooth won't share sound (e.g.: two users watching s movie from the same tablet in a plane). Only some bluetooth headsets from some manufacturers are able to forward the sound stream to another headset *from the same exact brand*. We you and your girlfriend happen to have noise cancel headphone from two different manufacturers (say Bose and Logitech UE), you can't listen simultaneously. Whereas the analog cable doesn't give a fuck what brand is the other headset plugged into the other leg of the Y audio splitter.

etc.

Re:More than one perspective

[mjwx]

A headphone jack takes up a neglible amount of space compared to its use

Maybe for you but that's not universally true.

Nope, he's right, the space it takes up is negligible compared to its use. In fact I'd go as far to say it takes up no space what so ever in a device with a 4" screen. Here's a teardown of a Nexus 5x... the "massive" headphone jack is right next to the guy's thumb... and the guy isn't gigantrathor, that's a normal sized thumb. That big thing he's taking out it he battery (which still lasts a day or 2 on my 2 yr old Nexus 5x)

I'm flying LHR to LAX (11 hours) next week. LHR-SIN (14 hours) next month, LHR-BOG (12 hours) in November and I'm thinking about a jaunt to Boston over the Christmas break (LHR-BOS 7.5 hours). No set of bluetooth headphones could last the duration considering that they'd also end up getting an hour or so use at LHR because security there is so bleeding efficient and customer focused. Add to this that a set of normal plug-in headphones will work on any 3.5mm jack. No worrying about bluetooth versions, compatibility, setup or any other bollocks, they just plug in and work.

Plus when it comes to hands free, anyone on bluetooth sounds like their in a lavatory at best. Some are down right shocking.