The Moondrop MIAD 01 is one of the most distinctive Android devices of 2024 thus far. It has a 4.4mm headphone jack to go with the more conventional 3.5mm type. Furthermore, it seems it might be as appealing to teardown enthusiasts as well as audiophiles, and may, therefore, also be easier to repair than most modern smartphones.
They take up quite a lot of space (for a phone) that could otherwise be used for a larger battery. I’ll happily take a few hundred mAh of battery life over a headphone jack. I find bluetooth headphones much more comfortable to use anyway. But I understand that some people prefer wired headphones.
But that space usually isn’t. No company would make a battery with a tiny little protrusion where the headphone jack once was. That’d cost a lot more, and make it a lot more fragile.
They’d be more likely to leave it empty, or fit something else in that space, like a third speaker.
By removing the headphone jack and saving space, everything can be laid out in a way that creates more room for a larger battery, many manufacturers do this.
Do you have examples of this?
I only know the iPhone 7 certainly had enough room for the headphone jack https://youtu.be/utfbE3_uAMA?si=xcbQ3Lne9SaQfOX0
Just look at the inside any modern smartphone, it’s full of battery and other stuff, basically no empty space. The iPhone 7 was the first generation without a headphone jack, it still used the old case design though. Look at the iPhone X which was completely redesigned, it’s just marginally larger than the iPhone 6/6s/7/8 (they all use the same case design) but has a much larger battery. They went from 7.45Wh (1960mAh) on the iPhone 7
to 10.35Wh (2716mAh) on the iPhone X.
I feel like the bottom phone there looks more empty than the top, it looks like there is still some room at the top and bottom there.
But anyhow, they’ve removed the headphone jacks from iPads as well and those certainly have some room left
No. Most of the iPad lineup uses LCD displays which are relatively thick. The headphone jack only fits in old iPads, because of the large bezels. On newer iPads, the headphone jack would need to go under the display, making the entire device much thicker. With OLED, you don’t have this problem, but Apple either uses LCD or Mini-LED for iPads.
Space seems overblown when Samsung ultras fit in an entire spen that takes up way more space, and most phones do not have a stylus that can be stored internally. So I don’t buy the excuse of space. Always has seemed like more a company excuse to sell accessories.