A couple hours before I was on the edge of getting a Fairphone 5 but I read the specifications and didn’t see 3.5 mm audio jack anywhere. So I thought to myself…why? The community has been requesting this for a couple years ago now so why not. They’re already making money on the phone, they’re really pushing for people to get their wireless headphones? Just add the headphone jack, shouldn’t be too hard.
They said they’re treating their workers fairly, sourcing from ethical sources, renewable claims, repairability claims, and supporting foss projects (they donated a fp4 to CalyxOS to support development). All of these are amazing, so adding a little headphone jack shouldn’t be that hard in the grand scheme of all this.
*Add the headphone jack and I’ll be happy to support and get a fp5.
15·1 year ago- Money - The cheapest actually usable wireless earbuds are like 50 bucks and they sound just like €5 wired Panasonic earbuds.
- Compatibility
- Nothing extra to recharge, no extra batteries to dispose of. Wireless earbuds are a lot more wasteful at the end of their life.
- Most likely higher audio quality than wireless if using SBC (depends on phone’s sound card)
- Latency - Sure, modern wireless earphones/headphones may have tiny latency, but it can get noticeable when gaming
- FM Radio - no antenna, no radio
- Less RFI
- Power efficiency
- Microphone input - It’s also an input. Wired input. Although it’s only mono. I used that to digitize a ZX Spectrum tape I found, tape with unidentified music and recording from SW radio. No need to bring out my laptop for that. You just need a combo jack splitter.
- No audio cuts - Most earbuds just cut off audio when there’s silence to save power, but that may also affect quiet audio. It also affects audio with cuts of silence in between. Each time they kick back, it’s ever so slightly late, losing a bit of audio.
- Safety when watching that stuff - you connected wired earphones, the audio goes just into them. You may take your wireless earphones, you see the Bluetooth icon showing it’s connected. Good. You play the stuff, you don’t hear anything. You increase the audio level, the living room speaker is moaning. Shit.
- SSTV - this could be useful for hams. There’s Robot36 and SSTV Encoder apps (F-Droid links). Using a phone with the radio may be pretty convenient, again utilizing the combo jack splitter.