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PC World has an article on why USB-C has not been a viable alternative for the 3.5mm audio jack. Problems with USB-C include variable handling of digital to audio conversion, incompatible SOCs inside the cable, and non-standard analog-passthrough. In short, the cables which contain computers themselves are not standardized in behavior and the author's conclusion is that mobile devices must have 3.5mm jacks until the USB-C cable technology gets sorted out enough that they become usable.
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Bring Back the Headphone Jack: Why USB-C Audio Still Doesn't Work
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(Score: 3, Interesting) by bzipitidoo on Wednesday September 12 2018, @11:47AM (4 children)
Thought I was going to see again one of the complaints of the 3.5mm jack, which is that it takes up a lot of space inside the device. That no one made that complaint suggests that USB-C isn't smaller.
There is a 2.5mm analog audio plug and jack standard. Same exact thing as 3.5mm, just smaller diameter. Wonder why we don't see more of that? Do they break off too easily?
(Score: 2) by drussell on Wednesday September 12 2018, @01:49PM (1 child)
Doesn't match standard things you want to plug into it and lack of robustness.
My Nokia 5300 phones have that stupid 2.5" plug so I have to use a silly adapter. It is hard to find the pigtail-style ones and the standard right-angle hard ones break relatively easily.
Stupid, stupid design. Just find the space for a proper 3.5" jack and be done with it. It isn't THAT big.
(Score: 2) by Shimitar on Wednesday September 12 2018, @02:12PM
Hey, idea, make a notch to hide it!
Coding is an art. No, java is not coding. Yes, i am biased, i know, sorry if this bothers you.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Immerman on Wednesday September 12 2018, @02:41PM (1 child)
The 2.5mm are weaker, and more importantly they sacrifice what's arguably the single largest advantage of the 3.5mm jack - compatibility. Adapters are cheap, but annoying.
I think you're not seeing comments about the size mostly because nobody here cares. And actually, probably very few people anywhere do, really. Users mostly care about functionality. Nevertheless marketing departments keep pushing thinner and thinner phones, despite all the downsides and minimal upsides they offer.
A 3.5mm jack probably can't be made any thinner than 4mm, and is probably closer to 5-6mm for something that won't break right away. Add 1-2mm for the screen it must fit behind, and maybe 0.5-1mm for the back case (we'll assume the jack is designed to fit within a cutout in the circuit board to avoid added thickness). So you just can't get a decent 3.5 jack into a phone thinner than 6-8mm, and achieving that is going to take some clever engineering. Plus you have the little fact that the plug represents a fairly solid lever jammed into the heart of your phone and protruding at least what, an inch or so? That's a lot of force that can be transferred right past the protective case into the fragile innards of your phone.
Still, for all that I'm still a fan. I've got no need for a razor-thin phone, I'd much rather have a slightly thicker phone with a standard audio jack and a bunch of extra battery capacity, not to mention the potentially much greater durability - bending strength increases with the square of thickness, so just going from 7mm to 10mm more than doubles the strength.
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 12 2018, @03:49PM
Regarding phone thinness: you've got to ask yourself, how thin can a phone be before the strength of materials dictates that it will bend or crack with minimal force, and therefore high probability?
I'd say we've already reached that point. Otherwise, how do you explain the phone case industry?
Stop the insanity!