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Android Technology

The Galaxy Note 10 Won't Have Headphone Jack or Buttons, Report Says (androidpolice.com) 206

The Galaxy Note 10 will reportedly be Samsung's first flagship to remove the headphone jack, taking one of the last wired audio options off the flagship market. From a report: The Note 10 will have no 3.5mm connector, or exterior buttons (power, volume, Bixby) will be replaced by capacitive or pressure-sensitive areas, likely highlighted by some kind of raised 'bump' and/or texture along the edge (i.e., a faux button). We don't know if it's Samsung's intent to carry over both of these changes to the Galaxy S11 in 2020. Both changes had been previously rumored, but we can now provide stronger confirmation. The Note line has always been fertile ground for Samsung's more forward-looking changes to its smartphones' industrial design and general philosophy, as it's a phone that's long been adored by some of Samsung's most ardent fans -- the sort of people who tend to be early adopters of new technology.
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The Galaxy Note 10 Won't Have Headphone Jack or Buttons, Report Says

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  • That's OK (Score:5, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday May 30, 2019 @03:16PM (#58681688)

    The next version of myself doesn't have hands or ears.

  • by ffkom ( 3519199 ) on Thursday May 30, 2019 @03:27PM (#58681750)
    No user replaceable battery, no deal.
    I'll leave it to others to buy devices that are built to last only 2 years and cannot be loaded in a second by swapping the battery.
    • Samsung battery are not replaceable by design. You do not need to replace them, since they are carefully crafted to explode during their lifetime.
    • No user replaceable battery, no deal.

      Of course the battery is user replaceable. You just lack the skills and equipment.

    • by rtb61 ( 674572 ) on Friday May 31, 2019 @06:09AM (#58684748) Homepage

      I had a Samsung battery fail on a Note 3, quite recently the original battery (apps would run not quite run low voltage I guess, it dropped half the charge in a matter of seconds). I was quite surprised, it failed and started to grow, quite the bulge in the middle, enough to force the back cover off. It started me wondering, those fixed batteries, how many people realise that a failing battery can actually physically break their phone. The battery was 50% thicker than normal, in the note 3 the cover comes off, in a Note 10, it would have broken the phone (now that is purposeful design obsolescence). I wonder how many cracked phones are actually failed batteries, suckers ($10 battery failure kills a thousand dollar phone, actually physically breaks the phone, what a scam).

    • And which current generation phone has an "easily" replaceable battery? Every one that I've seen is now sealed requiring plastic paddles, tri-torx screwdrivers and the patience of Jobe to change one out.

  • by Mark of the North ( 19760 ) on Thursday May 30, 2019 @03:28PM (#58681754)

    A year ago, this would be a deal-breaker for me. Now, I have a couple sets of bluetooth headphones which I much prefer over any of the wired headphones in my collection. Whether running, at the gym, working outside, or using the headphones to cover up household noise so I can sleep, I haven't reached for corded headphones in some time.

    Besides my headphone jack is constantly filling with pocket lint to the point where I couldn't use corded headphones anyway.

    • BT headphone pro: wireless (kind of). Cons: need to recharge daily, expensive, weightier, worst sound quality, you need to reconnect each device you're using and, depending on the paired device, keeps disconnecting. And, most of them, have a wire too, connecting to each other or to the neck base. Wired headphone: just connect. Simple like that.
  • by roc97007 ( 608802 ) on Thursday May 30, 2019 @03:31PM (#58681772) Journal

    My takeaway from the article: Take very good care of my Note 9, make it last as long as possible.

    The big disadvantage of wireless earphones vs wired -- it's two more charging processes to manage. Whereas hardwired earphones or headphones can sit in a drawer or a glovebox for years, you pull them out, and they just work.

    • by dmt0 ( 1295725 )

      My takeaway from the article: Take very good care of my Note 9, make it last as long as possible.

      Or just switch to LG, who are also building high quality Quad DACs into their phones.

  • Comment removed (Score:5, Interesting)

    by account_deleted ( 4530225 ) on Thursday May 30, 2019 @03:33PM (#58681788)
    Comment removed based on user account deletion
    • by joh ( 27088 )

      The trouble with user-replaceable batteries is that everyone just buys third-party batteries then, these batteries go down in a low and lower price spiral because everybody just buys the cheaper battery and they are all crappy then. You can buy a new battery for a few bucks then but it will just fail in no time.

      • by MrL0G1C ( 867445 )

        I bought a Samsung battery, it was plenty cheap. I don't see the point in buying risky 3rd party no brand junk just to save pennies. It's very likely a false economy buying the no-brand.

    • Samsung literally could not care less. By avoiding consumers like you, how many did they pick up that wanted a thinner, lighter phone? Hundreds? Thousands?

      If they thought it was worth wooing you back, they would. You're a niche market that nobody cares about, you're just very loud about it. There's nothing wrong with that per se, just don't have any illusions that some social media drone at Samsung is reading forum posts and will choose to change their design strategy because your biting commentary helped t

      • By avoiding consumers like you, how many did they pick up that wanted a thinner, lighter phone? Hundreds? Thousands?

        A healthy percentage of people not only don't give a fuck but are tired of piss poor battery life, brittle devices that are easily damaged and not being able to hold phone without accidentally triggering digitizers.

        I know companies like Apple think their customers truly care about premium high quality thin and light iPhones. Yet in the real world a MAJORITY of people are walking around with their thin phones in cheap bulky rubberized cases because they know if they don't their phones will literally fall ap

        • in the real world a MAJORITY of people are walking around with their thin phones in cheap bulky rubberized cases because they know if they don't their phones will literally fall apart.

          I think not having battery doors is a travesty, and if I could have found a cheap phone with decent RAM, a user-replaceable battery, water resistance, updates, and an unlockable bootloader, I'd have bought it. (The only thing I didn't get was the battery door.) But I think overall that having thin phones that one puts into a case is a virtue. It allows the user to tailor the amount of protection to their lifestyle, which I think is a virtue. I put a thin and cheap (as in, cheapest-on-eBay) squishy TPU skin

  • STUNNING (Score:3, Funny)

    by yuriklastalov ( 4536597 ) on Thursday May 30, 2019 @03:36PM (#58681806)

    AND BRAVE

  • Power button?? (Score:4, Insightful)

    by fish_in_the_c ( 577259 ) on Thursday May 30, 2019 @03:42PM (#58681844)

    I'm a little more concerned about the lack of any kind of physical power button then the headphone jack.
    How to you trigger a hardware level reset with software only buttons? I assume this problem is solved somewhere but I have yet to see a solution.

    • I'm a little more concerned about the lack of any kind of physical power button then the headphone jack. How to you trigger a hardware level reset with software only buttons? I assume this problem is solved somewhere but I have yet to see a solution.

      That won't be problem, in fact it won't even be a change. The current "hardware" buttons aren't really "hardware" buttons in any real sense anyway. They trigger interrupts on the main CPU that are handled by low-level firmware, and it's that firmware that notices when you hold the right buttons down for long enough and triggers a hardware reset. The pressure-sensitive or capacitive buttons will work the same way, except they'll probably be monitored by a dedicated microcontroller which will issue the int

      • The current "hardware" buttons aren't really "hardware" buttons in any real sense anyway. They trigger interrupts on the main CPU that are handled by low-level firmware

        Many SoCs even have an actual hardware watchdog.

    • How to you trigger a hardware level reset with software only buttons?

      There's no such thing as a hardware level reset on a phone. It's all software in one form of another. In other news, watchdogs and non-maskable interrupts are a thing. The problem is solved, you just can't see it because it doesn't have an physical form.

    • by mjwx ( 966435 )

      I'm a little more concerned about the lack of any kind of physical power button then the headphone jack.
      How to you trigger a hardware level reset with software only buttons? I assume this problem is solved somewhere but I have yet to see a solution.

      The article didn't say they were removing the power button.

      Many Android handsets have eschewed physical home, back and other function buttons for capacitive buttons for years now. My Galaxy Nexus didn't have them and have never failed (the phone still works, slow as a dog with modern apps, but still works). Sounds like the article is trying to make a big deal out of a non event. Samsung's high end phone doesn't have a headphone jack, good news... because it's Android, you've got a choice about your next

  • They literally add cents to a device and require minimal space. But fuck users. Let's remove the jack and then charge them a fortune for a set of bluetooth earbuds that are inferior in pretty much every way.
    • Did you miss the memo? Samsung sells Bluetooth earbuds now and wants to sell more of them. Gimme money!

      And why the high end? Because people that have bought phones that cost twice as much with fewer features have already self-selected into a group with more money than brains. Notice that just above thisv story, Moto is bringing the headphone jack back on their mid-range phones. Google also brought the jack back on their 3A.

      These companies know where the juice is.

      • ever listened to anything over Bluetooth where everybody in the same area is on Wifi and Bluetooth as well? click, buzz, pause, click, buzz, pause. No thanks, a wired headphone jack is table stakes for me.

  • No removable battery = no sale.
    No headphone jack = no sale.

    Oh and to all of you laptop vendors selling product at $1k to $3k a pop without a removable battery no sale.

    Last I checked smart phone sales are way down and so are costs associated with bringing "good enough" alternatives to market:

    https://wiki.pine64.org/index.... [pine64.org]

    If vendors want to be pricks then fuck em.

    • No removable battery = no sale.
      No headphone jack = no sale.

      Bingo. Those two items are "must haves" for me to even consider buying a phone.

      Fortunately not all manufacturers are moving to Full Retard Mode as Samsung appears to be doing now.

      Samsung used to be okay- my Galaxy S5 has a headphone jack and a replaceable battery and works fine. I should should probably buy a spare S5 or two while I still can.

    • Pinephone looks awesome except that 720p resolution. I don't know why, but it would be fun to dual boot Linux/Android on there. With USB C hosting and Display port, you could dock and reboot to Linux for your full desktop. Nifty.

      • Pinephone looks awesome except that 720p resolution.

        It's probably 720p to go with the much-less-than-awesome MALI400 GPU. It's adequate for basic purposes, but that's about it. There is one benefit to MALI, though, which is that it's the only mobile GPU with an OSS driver besides Tegra.

        I have a Pine A64+ 2GB that I plan to use in-vehicle, as soon as I can find my damned uSD reader so I can reflash it.

  • I bet Huawei's phablet will have a headphone jack.

    Just say'n.

  • Can somebody PLEASE come up with a way to at LEAST allow us to have real, latency-free buttons on the CASE?

    Example: phone has two or three conductive pads on the exterior, internally connected to the phone's GPIO through an optoisolator. Basically, the pads are connected to a LED inside the phone, and the phone's SOC is connected to a sensor that's right next to it. Shorting out the pads has no effect, because they only have power when some external power source (like a circuit inside a thirdparty case) pro

  • Are there any iphones with styluses that have headphone jacks?
  • They forced curved displays on power users. Want a flat display? Buy a low end model.
    Done and dusted, finally 'broke up' with them after having 5 Samsungs in a row, headphone jack would also have 100% been a bye bye situation.

    Don't miss them, or their same-as-Apple pricing on the top end models.

  • Last winter I just wanted to put headphones on and listen to music while I shoveled snow. After around 20 minutes of fiddling with the bluetooth headphones I realized they were connected to my laptop upstairs. So I tromp upstairs in my boots, disconnect from my laptop, go down stairs. Then it's time to move the vehicle out of the driveway. I start my car and my headphones connect to the car. Like what the fuck kind of protocol connects to another device when you are in the middle of listening to music?
    • Actually what happened when I started my car was that my phone connected to it instead of the headphones. Keep in mind that my phone is buried in a big coat, I'm wearing mitts, and headphones are under a hat.
    • Last winter I just wanted to put headphones on and listen to music while I shoveled snow. After around 20 minutes of fiddling with the bluetooth headphones I realized they were connected to my laptop upstairs. So I tromp upstairs in my boots, disconnect from my laptop, go down stairs. Then it's time to move the vehicle out of the driveway. I start my car and my headphones connect to the car. Like what the fuck kind of protocol connects to another device when you are in the middle of listening to music? At t

      • Comment removed based on user account deletion
        • Hahaha. Thanks man.. I needed a chuckle. Around these parts, a teenager willing to work is about as rare as unicorn farts.

          Wow...really?

          That's just kinda sad.

          What do teens do for money these days if they don't have job or work around the neighborhood?

  • Does anyone know if USB-C is rated to be more durable than micro-usb? Honest question.. I just made my best effort at Googling and couldn't find any durability tests. My USB-C ports seem to get loose after a small amount of use; I cannot see how they are more durable than micro-usb.

    Just saying having that dongle with the phone in the pocket and headphones plugged in is going to put a lot of stress on the port.
    • by MrL0G1C ( 867445 )

      It can hardly be worse, I've had several micro-usb ports die and I hate them. Good thing about USB-C, you can't accidentally plug it in the wrong way round and kill a phone that costs more than a TV.

      • Geez, how hard did you press on that micro-usb? No wonder you had problems. I used my Galaxy 3 daily for five years, plugging and unplugging several times a day and the micro-usb was only just going at the end.
        • by MrL0G1C ( 867445 )

          how hard did you press on that micro-usb? No wonder you had problems

          Jump to conclusions and then comment on that conclusion as if it's full reality!!!!

          My Galaxy Note II also lasted many years, it was the power button that finally went on it, I blame that on the crappy repair job done to the screen, they fixed the screen but damaged the phone whilst doing it.

          Anyway point is some USB connected are better quality and far more robust than others and some are far easier to see which direction to plug the lead i

    • Type C: 10k cycles
      Micro USB: Also 10k cycles

      I'm enjoying Type C so far. The cheap 10' cable I bought at grocery outlet is working fine with Turbopower...

  • Of sanding that goddamn bixby button off the side.

  • With all the high end phones joining the horrible design decision to go without a headphone jack, where are all the customers clamoring for it's removal? I've heard some say it doesn't affect them much, but most posts I've seen absolutely hate not having it. I've been using a Pixel 2XL for almost 2 years, and I'll never buy another phone without the headphone jack. I've gone through about half a dozen usb-c -> 3.5mm adapters, they go bad on me like crazy. I hate not being able to listen to headphones

  • Comment removed based on user account deletion
    • Same here, but that's not the only dealbreaker for me. I have at least 200 other reasons as long as the Pixel 3 is $800.

  • I guess it's time to get a Moto Z4 instead. https://www.digitaltrends.com/... [digitaltrends.com]

    • Just know that you're almost certainly not getting Android R on that thing, just like the article you linked says. Lenovorola has been very good so far about unlocking bootloaders (you need permission if your phone is provider-locked, but unlocked devices are cheap enough) and tolerably good about providing updates, but they're not going to support the current devices for ever and ever. I'm pretty happy to be getting Q, though.

  • by Trogre ( 513942 )

    A Moto Z4 for me then!

  • There's other phones if Samsung isn't interested in making a decent one.

  • ... a Galaxy Note 10.

    That was easy.

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