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Comment on Fairphone announces the €599 Fairphone 6, with a 6.31" 120Hz LTPO OLED display, a Snapdragon 7s Gen 3 chip, and enhanced modularity with 12 swappable parts

phantomwise@lemmy.ml ⁨9⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

Why does The Fairphone (Gen. 6) not have an audio jack?

After some of the criticism that we received about removing the headphone jack from Fairphone 4, we did consider bringing it back for The Fairphone (Gen. 6). However, we realized it would be at the expense of increasing the phone’s dimensions. We also looked into the consumer data and Fairphone 4’s weight and thickness were more of an issue than the lack of a minijack, so we decided to keep the same approach, although it was a difficult decision. We didn’t want to invest in OLED technology for the display and then not have improved the phone’s dimensions and weight. But just like with Fairphone 4 and Fairphone 5, we will still offer an adapter, which has had overall positive user reviews.

“We heard the criticism but decided that no, you would still need an adapter to use headphones, plus a USB-C hub to be able to charge the damn thing while listening to music or watching videos”

Funny how that’s the same excuses that we get for modern laptops terrible design. “We HAVE to make it thinner so there’s no space! You wouldn’t want a laptop that’s not complete shit if it meant it’d be less thin and breakable, would you?”

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Dogyote@slrpnk.net ⁨9⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
Okay, I’m going to ask… why don’t you use wireless?

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- potustheplant@feddit.nl ⁨9⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  Let me give you simple example. When I take a flight, I like to watch my own media. Those flights sometimes are upwards of 10 hours. If I use wireless earbuds, both the earbuds and my phone will run out of battery and I have to charge them separately. However, since I have a phone with a headphone jack, my earbuds never run out of battery, I can charge my phone while I’m using them and I don’t need to use a single adapter.
  
  Oh yeah, and the audio quality is also better.
  
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  - Dogyote@slrpnk.net ⁨9⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    That’s not simple. That’s very specific, and you really listen for 10 solid hours? Also if you’re dropping 10 hour flight money… I feel like there’s a wireless solution in your price range
    
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    potustheplant@feddit.nl ⁨9⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    You clearly didn’t get the point. The cost isn’t the only issue. There are downsides to wireless earbuds and I honestly do not prefer them most of the time. In my example, I’m using them the entire time because I don’t want to hear airplane noises and yeah, I am playing something on them most of the time if I’m flying alone.
    
    Also if you’re dropping 10 hour flight money…
    
    Sorry but this is a very very dumb take. “if you spent a lot of money, you could spend MORE money”. Really dude? The solution is just having a damn headphone jack, not spending money because corporations want you to.
    
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- Severalkittens@lemmy.world ⁨9⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  It’s about options. You can still use Bluetooth even with a phone that has a 3.5mm jack. I also run live sound and have used the ability to plug my phone directly into the board for background music multiple times.
  
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- Kannushi_Link@lemmy.world ⁨9⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  Latency issue, in some use cases it’s not acceptable to have 0.1~0.3 sec lag, like racing games or rhythm games.
  
  (Yeah, I know there are some wireless protocols to make latency shorter, but it might cost a lot to buy a supported headphone, and it’s still useless if the phone doesn’t have proper protocol supports.)
  
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- phantomwise@lemmy.ml ⁨9⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  They are expensive. You can get wired earphones for 2 euros that actually work and are reasonably durable. It’s not a great loss if they fall in a puddle or if I step on them.
  
  They are a lot more failure prone. Half of those I tried didn’t work or only half worked, and those that did work didn’t last very long.
  
  They have shitty range. I can use a 10 meters extension cord with wired earphones if I want to.
  
  They require charging. And it’s a law of physics that everything that requires charging always run out at the most inconvenient time.
  
  Also THEY ALWAYS GET LOST. Wireless earphones, mouse, controllers… it doesn’t matter, if it’s not attached with a cable they’ll just disappear.
  
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  - Havald@lemmy.world ⁨9⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    LOL, 10m extension cord. I mean you’ve already established that you don’t give a crap about sound quality with your first point but that’s just ridiculous. Not to mention the 10m cord that your dragging around the house.
    
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    phantomwise@lemmy.ml ⁨9⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    I don’t really care about sound quality when using earphones at home because I only use them when there’s a lot of ambient noise so the sound will be bad either way. When doing vacuum cleaning, or the dishes, stuff like that. When I still had a smartphone I used a 1,5m extension cord so it wouldn’t pull on the jack each time I move, but since it died I’m using a much longer one plugged to my PC (not actually 10m, that was hyperbole, more like 5m). It’s not very convenient I’ll admit, but it does the job.
    
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  - Lazhward@lemmy.world ⁨9⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    Wait… have you actually lost your mouse? Hilarious if true 😂
    
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    phantomwise@lemmy.ml ⁨9⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    Well not actually lost… I just haven’t found under which furniture it rolled yet 😅
    
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- Allero@lemmy.today ⁨9⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  1.Wired headphones deliver better audio quality 2.Wired headphones are harder to lose 3.Wired headphones don’t need batteries, so: a)less e-waste b)no need to check if they are charged 4.Wired headphones are more secure, connection cannot be intercepted and phishing attacks with BT are not possible 5.While wired headphones are plugged, no one can take your phone without you noticing
  
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  - Dremor@lemmy.world ⁨9⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    Phishing attacks? On a headphone? 🤣
    
    Wired headphones can be intercepted, as the wires unfortunately also act as an antenna (I’m a computer security technician, we semi-routinely do such interception).
    
    As for sound quality, it will always be limited by the DAC quality, and there is little way to add a good quality DAC without adding significant weight to the phone. Did you ever wonder why audiophiles audio players looks like bricks? That why.
    
    But I agree with point 2, 3 and 5, they are valid, but I don’t agree with some aspects:
    
    You can make some TW headphones bips to find them, which you cannot with wired ones for obvious reasons.
    
    The cable is unfortunately often their weakpoints, and I had to throw away multiple of my headphones (which were fairly good quality ones) because of that. That’s actually the main reason I went wireless. I was tired of the cable breaking, and it getting in my way.
    
    Now all my audio equipments are wireless, and I change their batteries every 5 years or so. Unfortunately I bought mines before Fairphone launched theirs, so it wasn’t an option, but once any of my headphones eat the dust for good, I’ll probably buy an easily repairable one if audio quality and codecs are acceptable (I’m an Audiophile, so that’s important to me).
    
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    Allero@lemmy.today ⁨9⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    
    Phishing attacks? Yep. There was a type of attack that utilized wireless headphone merging as an attack vector. With wired headphones, you can simply turn Bluetooth off.
    
    I know of DACs (been through audiophile phase myself), and sure, a typical integrated mobile one doesn’t deliver THAT big of a quality. Still, wired headphones are not bottlenecking much just by the means of connection. And they are generally cheaper for the same audio quality, because you don’t need to put batteries etc.
    
    Agree with your counterpoints. On the cable - I much prefer detachable options, so you can replace the cable easily. but the connector has to be strong enough - I’m a bit tired to see my Moondrop Chu disconnecting and shaking somewhere in my pocket.
    
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- jumping_redditor@sh.itjust.works ⁨9⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  wireless headphones run out of battery, and most seem to have atrocious build quality and battery life.
  
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  - Dogyote@slrpnk.net ⁨9⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    The battery? Mine last at least 8 hours and charge in two.
    
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    TheOakTree@lemm.ee ⁨9⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    Battery degradation. Wired earphones/headphones can be BIFL it treated properly. A typical wireless device will see battery degradation within a handful of years, and I have yet to see a decent TWS solution with replaceable batteries.
    
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dustyData@lemmy.world ⁨9⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
Let me expand, as I usually deal with surveys and population feedback. There’s loud feedback, and there’s statistically significant feedback.

People who want a headphone jack are very loud. They will interject this issue into every feedback opportunity given. They will mention it on the comment sections, forums, q&a sessions, answer their surveys accordingly, etc. That’s all fine and their prerogative.

However, when you look at the statistics. They are unfortunately a very tiny minority of the entire population. They are not statistically significant for decision making. They don’t have the volume to move sales significantly. This sucks, of course, and I personally wouldn’t mind the return of headphone jacks, smaller phones and bigger batteries as a fair trade for thicker phones.

But unfortunately, the vast majority of the market is pre-occupied with other things. The phone screen is too small, the phone weights too much, the phone is too thick, I want to bring my phone to the pool without fear of it breaking, etc. They are not as passionate about it, not like the headphone people are, but they far outnumber them in several orders of magnitude. In the end, if the product doesn’t sell, it won’t matter how much it was worth to a single passionate person. It will sink the company if it doesn’t have mass appeal. Making phones is already an extremely expensive endeavor.

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- potustheplant@feddit.nl ⁨9⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  You know why there aren’t more users complaining about this? Because they flat out did not buy the device for that reason (e.g. me). Removing the jack is also extremely hyprocritical coming from a “sustainable” company.
  
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  - dustyData@lemmy.world ⁨9⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    And if it did have it you wouldn’t have bought it either because the company is hypocritical. So why do you care? Why should they care?
    
    The point is, the people who did buy it didn’t care, and the people who care don’t buy. It’s a conundrum. Pair it with performance data of other phones that do have a headphone jack, plus the engineering compromises over other very important features. Then the decision makes sense. You lot aren’t buying phones with headphone jacks either, so it isn’t economically worth it. It’s not like the motor g or the Asus rog phone are breaking sales records just on the headphone jack.
    
    It’s the same story as with small phones. People who aren’t buying phones like to complain about phone size. But then when a small phone is made, no one buys it. Then the people who didn’t buy the phone complain again, because the phone wasn’t perfect for them.
    
    It happens all the time, people are usually very vocal about things that actually don’t drive their decision making.
    
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    potustheplant@feddit.nl ⁨9⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    
    Why should they care?
    
    Because they should want to capture more customers? Is that really your question?
    
    The point is, the people who did buy it didn’t care
    
    Yeah and how many were those?
    
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- phantomwise@lemmy.ml ⁨9⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  What statistics? People buying thin phones over thicker phones doesn’t mean much when that’s almost all that’s being sold nowadays and every phone is trying to be as thin as possible. It seemed to me that 90% of what we’re told people want is actually just what companies want to push on us because it’s cheaper and more profitable.
  
  All the people I know who are average users couldn’t care less about how thin the phone is, two mm more or less doesn’t make any difference. They care about screen size and being able to use it without too much hassle. If they get a phone without an audio jack half of them will just assume that they can’t plug earphones at all. And they are not the ones who will complain. But then, Fairphone isn’t marketed towards average users, so maybe their users have different priorities? Idk
  
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  - dustyData@lemmy.world ⁨9⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    If you ask people what they want, they will tell you they want a phone that has 15 inch screen that looks perfect under the sunlight. But also fits into their pocket. And it has to have a battery that lasts a week, but it must not weight anything at all. But also has to play all the highly graphical games, and also have a professional level camera. It must do so and also last forever and be indestructible.
    
    That phone obviously can’t exist, and a lot of what people want are things that oppose each other from the engineering pov. That’s the point of surveys and market analysis. You don’t just look at what people say, you look at what they do, what they actually buy.
    
    It is true that the other side of marketing is convincing people that what the company is offering is what they would also want to buy. But it is never a guarantee. I mean, look at the Samsung Edge flop. Marketing is not magic, you can’t brainwash 100 million people to buy something they don’t want. Marketing is marrying what the company wants to do in terms of cost cutting and profit maxing, with what the market is actually willing to buy. If people keep buying slop, they will keep selling slop, and they will keep marketing slop to people to convince them they want the slop. To break the circle someone has to stop, and it won’t be the corporations.
    
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- FG_3479@lemmy.world ⁨9⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  You can get good Bluetooth earbuds for under $50 and a USB-C to AUX dongle for under $15.
  
  The average person is fine with Bluetooth earbuds or an adapter, and audiophiles would not find the inbuilt DAC/amp on a phone to be adequate.
  
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  - zod000@lemmy.ml ⁨9⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    My wired earbuds cost more than ten times that and will probably last me until I retire. The vast majority of those USB-c to 3.5mm adapters are cheap crap that have a worthless DAC and/or fall apart after a short time. I have purchased my wife three such adapters since she decided it was worth it to get a phone without a headphone jack and none of them have been good.
    
    I ended up having to buy her a separate portable music player to use. So thanks for that Google, Apple, and the rest of the greedy shithead OEMs.
    
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    FG_3479@lemmy.world ⁨9⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    Which brand of adpater did you get? If you got a generic one then a bad DAC and durability aren’t surprises.
    
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  - ManOMorphos@lemmy.world ⁨9⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    Maybe I chose the wrong $10 adapter but I notice a big drop in sound quality using that vs Bluetooth, to the point that it’s not worth using unless there isn’t another option. I’m not really an audiophile, though I can notice the general quality of sound.
    
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    FG_3479@lemmy.world ⁨9⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    That’s why you don’t just buy the cheapest one you see on Amazon. Google/DDG around to know which ones are good.
    
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  - WhyJiffie@sh.itjust.works ⁨9⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    how do you charge the phone with a DAC plugged in?
    
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    FG_3479@lemmy.world ⁨9⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    You can get a USB-C splitter adapter.
    
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    46_and_2@lemmy.world ⁨9⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    Wirelessly.
    
    Or you switch to your bluetooth buds during a wired charge.
    
    I’m all for audio jacks, but have been using a phone without ine for 4 years now, and there are so many options to not be incovenienced.
    
    Also I don’t use my audiophile headphones with the phone at all - DAC, just isn’t good enough, prefer to use them with my desktop PC amp.
    
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    papertowels@mander.xyz ⁨9⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    If we revisit the “loud” vs “statistically significant” paradigm, while it is a shame you will not be able to charge the phone with a dac in, how often does the average person do so?
    
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- xvapx@lemmy.world ⁨9⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  
  People who want a headphone jack […] are unfortunately a very tiny minority of the entire population.
  
  People interested in paying more for fair trade materials and repairable phones are also a very tiny minority of the entire population.
  Of course I don’t have any statistic, but I would guess that the proportion of people wanting a Jack is significantly higher in the group of people interested in buying Fairphone tht on the general population.
  
  In my particular case, I’m still using my Fairphone 3, and I’m not buying a Fairphone again unless it has a Jack.
  
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  - falcunculus@jlai.lu ⁨9⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    
    I don’t have any statistic, but I would guess that the proportion of people wanting a Jack is significantly higher in the group of people interested in buying Fairphone that on the general population.
    
    Fairphone literally does have that statistic. They spent effort to gather that info in order to inform their business decisions. And they report:
    
    We also looked into the consumer data and Fairphone 4’s weight and thickness were more of an issue than the lack of a minijack
    
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  - squaresinger@lemmy.world ⁨9⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    Have a look at their impact report. They themselves claim that they don’t spend more than €5 per phone on fair trade or environmental stuff.
    
    You are only paying more for that phone because they are a tiny boutique manufacturer who has to outsource everything. The fair/eco stuff is just fair- and greenwashing.
    
    If you buy a phone because you want to look fair/eco, buy a Fairphone. If you actually really care for fair/eco, get an used phone and donate some money to the correct NGOs or charities.
    
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    __dev@lemmy.world ⁨9⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    
    Have a look at their impact report. They themselves claim that they don’t spend more than €5 per phone on fair trade or environmental stuff.
    
    I’ve looked through their report and I can’t find this info. The only thing I’ve found is a ~€2 bonus per phone to their factory workers, which is only a small fraction of a phones supply chain. Can you provide a more detailed reference supporting your claim?
    
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  - Benaaasaaas@group.lt ⁨9⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    Just out of interest, because I too love the jack, then what are you buying in the future?
    
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    Severalkittens@lemmy.world ⁨9⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    I have a Sony Xperia that has both a jack and a SD slot. I shelled out for the top of the line one, but since it has good specs I plan on keeping it for many years.
    
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    xvapx@lemmy.world ⁨9⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    I have no idea, I’m hoping for my F3 to still last a couple of years.
    I’m honestly pretty tired of Android, and that’s another can of worms. Maybe I’ll try with a linux phone, but I’m still undecided.
    
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    InFerNo@lemmy.ml ⁨9⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    Motorola or whatever, depends what’s available within budget at the time I need the phone.
    
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  - timbuck2themoon@sh.itjust.works ⁨9⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    Like I’ve said before- their market is small enough they should be trying to get everyone they can to buy it.
    
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    Havald@lemmy.world ⁨9⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    That’s what they’re doing. That’s why they remove the headphone jack in favour for a slimmer, lighter phone. Their market research showed that’s more important to a bigger portion of their customers.
    
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kopasz7@sh.itjust.works ⁨9⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
Very strange how mine can somehow fit a 7000mAh battery, dual SIM + SD card slot and a regular jack. Hmm…

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- sexy_peach@feddit.org ⁨9⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  Is it repairable only with a screwdriver and parts you can buy from the manufacturer?
  
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  - kopasz7@sh.itjust.works ⁨9⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    I guess, I will find out when the need arises. Hasn’t happened in 4.5 years yet.
    
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    seejur@lemmy.world ⁨9⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    Are you a Republican? Because that really sounds like “mine works, so fuck everyone else”
    
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