The phone jack in the phone is dead – and remains dead
With the Galaxy Note 10 Samsung also kills the headphone jack in the smartphone. So it is clear: The days of the latch are probably numbered at least for mobile phones soon.
It's over! We Klinken fans fought well, but in the end we just had to give up. Once again, the industry, the manufacturers have said, is right. As a result, we must now finally settle for the idea that the good old phone jack in smartphones simply has no future. With the launch of the new Galaxy Note 10 , another major smartphone manufacturer has now bowed to the general trend with Samsung: the handle can go away!
LG is the only time holding the headphone jack
For the time being, in the premium segment only LG will remain as the last manufacturer to build smartphones with the classic 3.5 millimeter headphone jack. Of course, it remains to be seen how long the South Koreans will continue to swim against the general stream, but given the small market share, it is anyway no longer decisive for the general trend.
The fact is: smartphones without a classic headphone jack have prevailed in the past three years on a broad front and dominate the high-end market. And even if there is some excitement in the social media that Samsung has banned the latch from its latest flagship, it is very unlikely that this will make a comeback again, as TURN ON colleague Andreas calls it in his article ,
Bluetooth headphones have long prevailed
The development of the market simply speaks a different language. As early as the summer of 2016, the NPD Group was able to present market figures for the first time, according to which Bluetooth headphones had pulled past the sales figures for wired headphones. That was several months before Apple brought the iPhone 7 on the market and thereby for the first time renounced the headphone connection. Since then, the weight has moved much more towards the wireless headphones. For example, analysts at Futuresource (via Audioexpress ) estimated a 30 percent increase in sales for 2018 alone.
Bluetooth headphones like the Bose Soundsport Free have long been commonplace.
The blame for the development of this alone to blame Apple, but would be wrong. Other manufacturers obviously already had similar plans in their drawer at the time and probably just waited for someone to take the first step.
The best example of this is the smartphone high-flyer of recent years: Huawei. After the Chinese had for the first time on the Mate 10 Pro and later on P20 Pro renounced the headphone connection, the customers did not turn away. On the contrary: Both devices became bestsellers. The customers apparently did not care about the omission of the 3.5-millimeter jack. As a result, the jack connection was also missing from the respective successors.
Samsung only does the obvious
In the case of Samsung, the manufacturer has given its regular customers a relatively long time to adapt to the change. After all, three years is already half an eternity in the fast-moving smartphone market. That the South Koreans would eventually come to the point at which the renunciation of the jack connection design makes sense, was already foreseeable.
With the Galaxy Buds Samsung has prepared the farewell to the latch.
Of course, in Seoul you will also have a close look at the market and find out that most of the customers have meanwhile switched to Lightning, USB-C or even Bluetooth headphones without much grumbling. Especially the latter offer the audio manufacturers a thoroughly lucrative new market, the Samsung with his Galaxy Buds now also very successfully recorded.
Once without cable, always without cable?
I myself am a big friend of the fact that manufacturers let me choose whether to use Bluetooth or classic headphones on my smartphone. That's why I think it's a shame that the good old jack will sooner or later completely disappear from the smartphone market. But I also have to admit that in recent years I have switched almost exclusively to wireless headsets, because they are simply more convenient to use and carry for me.
My behavior is probably not untypical. I am sure that there are many people out there who would like to continue to have a jack connection on their smartphone, but at the same time prefer to use Bluetooth headsets. However, even if some phone enthusiasts now prefer to use wireless headsets whenever the opportunity arises, it is not surprising that manufacturers simply let the handle die.
One of the last smartphone flagships with jack? The Samsung Galaxy S10e.
Yes, I believe that the pawl by the departure of Samsung is finally out of her – at least in the smartphone. Apart from that, it will certainly continue to live – if only because many music lovers will not forgo the cable connection to their expensive music system in the future. Especially hi-fi enthusiasts who insist on a proper DAC prefer headphones with a jack connection. And who knows: maybe in the future there will even be expensive special-interest smartphones for a corresponding buyer group?
However, the broad mass of smartphone users should be prepared to sooner or later use either the Bluetooth or USB-C or Lightning interface to listen to music. The latch is finally on the decline.