The New Moto Z doesn't have a 3.5mm headphone jack - USB-C to headphone adapter instead

[Sauron]

37 minutes ago, Trixanity said:

I suppose they could design a sort of modular USB-C cable where you could have stacked cables meaning you could insert your charging cable into your phone and then insert your headphone cable into the back of the charging cable and the signal would be transfered through (somehow). 

I doubt that more than one USB-C port will ever become a standard in a phone.

 

With that being said, I dislike being without a 3.5mm jack. I mean the connector might be bulky by today's standards but it's currently the best solution. I don't feel like the USB-C standard is mature enough or a superior solution for that matter.

What the hell is the point of removing the jack to make the phone thinner if you're going to have to carry a bulky adapter with you? Just have 2 usb c ports, how hard is that...

[LAwLz]

15 minutes ago, Belgarathian said:

Better in the long run because it allows me to get audio out of my device on the go in a digital form where my headphones and built in DAC can deal with it, rather than be processed by the inbuilt DAC and then output through a 3.5mm analogue connector. Yeah, sure... Headphones would likely be slightly more expensive in a realistic scenario, and if you buy a terrible pair of headphones, well you're going to have a bad experience... But that's the same now, except you also have to hope the DAC in your phone is decent and the AMP can power your headphones. 

And why would you be unable to use your USB type C port for digital audio out if your phone also had a 3.5mm headphone jack?

We are not talking about replacing USB with 3.5mm jacks here. We are talking about replacing USB + 3.5mm with only USB.

This is only removing possibilities for consumers, not adding any new.

 

 

15 minutes ago, Belgarathian said:

As for DACs adding to costs all phones with a 3.5mm jack have inbuilt DAC. 

Yes, and without analog audio out we will need two DACs. One in the phone, and one in the headphones.

[Trixanity]

1 hour ago, Sauron said:

What the hell is the point of removing the jack to make the phone thinner if you're going to have to carry a bulky adapter with you? Just have 2 usb c ports, how hard is that...

Uh, you're not reading my post. I said a cable capable of stacking. Like legos if you will. It's not an adapter. It would all be USB-C.

 

It wouldn't be considerably bulkier (at best it would make the connector slightly longer but still thin) and you're chained to wall if you're charging anyway. If you're carrying it around, you would be carrying the charger anyway as well.

 

Multiple USB ports will add the same problem the 3.5mm apparently has: you're taking up space inside the device. A stackable connector would make it all external whilst carrying a minimal footprint and would only be used rarely. It's only supposed to solve the headphone OR charging problem. The rest of the time, you'll be having a single port single use scenario.

[Sauron]

16 minutes ago, Trixanity said:

Uh, you're not reading my post. I said a cable capable of stacking. Like legos if you will. It's not an adapter. It would all be USB-C.

 

It wouldn't be considerably bulkier (at best it would make the connector slightly longer but still thin) and you're chained to wall if you're charging anyway. If you're carrying it around, you would be carrying the charger anyway as well.

 

Multiple USB ports will add the same problem the 3.5mm apparently has: you're taking up space inside the device. A stackable connector would make it all external whilst carrying a minimal footprint and would only be used rarely. It's only supposed to solve the headphone OR charging problem. The rest of the time, you'll be having a single port single use scenario.

Except that is not possible. You need a hub to connect multiple things to the same usb connector. Hubs are not small enough to fit inside a slightly longer connector. And no, you're not taking up nearly as much space in the device with usb as you would with the jack: the jack is analog and requires and internal dac, it is significantly longer and it is also taller.

[Trixanity]

4 minutes ago, Sauron said:

Except that is not possible. You need a hub to connect multiple things to the same usb connector. Hubs are not small enough to fit inside a slightly longer connector. And no, you're not taking up nearly as much space in the device with usb as you would with the jack: the jack is analog and requires and internal dac, it is significantly longer and it is also taller.

Depends on if you can engineer a small USB-C solution internally or externally (hub that is). You could probably make an extension to the specification allowing one cable to piggy-back off another possibly taking over some of the pins of the connector actually plugged into the device. Maybe it would charge slower because of that but at least you're able to charge at the same time. Depends on the pin requirements of each. From what I understand USB-C audio doesn't require that many pins (if I recall correctly).

 

But honestly, no solution is elegant. Neither mine or yours: just throwing more ports at the problem.

[suicidalfranco]

3 hours ago, Belgarathian said:

Better in the long run because it allows me to get audio out of my device on the go in a digital form where my headphones and built in DAC can deal with it, rather than be processed by the inbuilt DAC and then output through a 3.5mm analogue connector. Yeah, sure... Headphones would likely be slightly more expensive in a realistic scenario, and if you buy a terrible pair of headphones, well you're going to have a bad experience... But that's the same now, except you also have to hope the DAC in your phone is decent and the AMP can power your headphones. 

 

As for DACs adding to costs all phones with a 3.5mm jack have inbuilt DAC. 

[Senzelian]

Here is an idea: Remove USB Type C and charge over the 3.5mm jack... Yeah...  Me genius.

[RagnarokDel]

That's a phone I'm not going to buy

[hazzerjt]

On 09/06/2016 at 10:53 PM, lots of unexplainable lag said:

Tell me, what's the advantage of USB-C headphones (or wireless ones for that matter) over the industry standard 3.5mm? Better sound quality? Nope, depends on the audio source and in everyday life you wouldn't hear the difference anyway. Wireless headphones suffer from interference no matter how good they are from other wireless sources and battery life on the things in general is poop.

The only advantage is being able to make the device thinner. Thanks, Apple

[Qub3d]

I'm hoping for MotoMods to save this one. If someone makes a battery snap-on that adds a bit more thickness to fix the annoying camera bump, and also has a 3.5mm jack added, we will be good to go!

[Sauron]

5 minutes ago, hazzerjt said:

The only advantage is being able to make the device thinner. Thanks, Apple

Why blame Apple for Motorola's mistakes?

[Belgarathian]

10 hours ago, LAwLz said:

And why would you be unable to use your USB type C port for digital audio out if your phone also had a 3.5mm headphone jack?

We are not talking about replacing USB with 3.5mm jacks here. We are talking about replacing USB + 3.5mm with only USB.

This is only removing possibilities for consumers, not adding any new.

 

 

Yes, and without analog audio out we will need two DACs. One in the phone, and one in the headphones.

Valid... My bad, yeah, it would be good to have both. I'm still for Audio pass-through over USB-C to be more commonplace would be far more interesting to see what brands like Focal, AKG, Bose, B&W, B&O, etc come up with.

 

even if they put an optical out at the end of the 3.5mm jack like what Apple did with the airport express

[AlTech]

On ‎6‎/‎10‎/‎2016 at 6:20 AM, Okjoek said:

What exactly is the benefit to this USB-c? Is it like moving from analog to digital or something? And what exactly does that mean for quality, price etc...

Almost nothing

 

On ‎6‎/‎10‎/‎2016 at 8:14 AM, Blade of Grass said:

How has Apple started a trend? Which one of their phones came without a 3.5mm jack? 

They are rumored to not include it on the iPhone 7 and so people decided that rumor = fact

[MrDynamicMan]

Motorola. You are dead to me. 

[AlTech]

17 minutes ago, MrDynamicMan said:

Motorola. You are dead to me. 

Same. I stopped caring when the Moto X was too expensive and the Moto G was a rip off.

[Anakumulos]

31 minutes ago, AluminiumTech said:

Same. I stopped caring when the Moto X was too expensive and the Moto G was a rip off.

Motorola has dropped in quality very sharply. It used to be that you were a complete scrub if you didn't have a Motorola phone. I swear at this point, they are simply riding off of company loyalty to make money.

 

Can I just get a decent smartphone that works and wont break within 3 years? Im tempted to downgrade back to my old blackberry-esque Samsung phone. lasted me 8 years and still going strong after so much.

[AlTech]

1 minute ago, Anakumulos said:

Motorola has dropped in quality very sharply. It used to be that you were a complete scrub if you didn't have a Motorola phone. I swear at this point, they are simply riding off of company loyalty to make money.

 

Can I just get a decent smartphone that works and wont break within 3 years? Im tempted to downgrade back to my old blackberry-esque Samsung phone. lasted me 8 years and still going strong after so much.

Apparently that's too hard to ask except for Microsoft.

[Anakumulos]

10 minutes ago, AluminiumTech said:

Apparently that's too hard to ask except for Microsoft.

Like, I hate to be the seemingly "old guy" of the forum, but I see no advantage to challenging the status quo of headphone jacks. Its a waste of time, effort and money. They try to justify a thinner phone with being "More portable" but all I see is "More breakable and a smaller battery". Give me a nice THICK phone with 80% of it just being battery that lasts me four days on one charge, and ill be happy. Plus better screens. Less glass. More Acrylic.

[AlTech]

1 minute ago, Anakumulos said:

Like, I hate to be the seemingly "old guy" of the forum, but I see no advantage to challenging the status quo of headphone jacks. Its a waste of time, effort and money. They try to justify a thinner phone with being "More portable" but all I see is "More breakable and a smaller battery". Give me a nice THICK phone with 80% of it just being battery that lasts me four days on one charge, and ill be happy. Plus better screens. Less glass. More Acrylic.

No no, I complete agree. Headphone jacks should be there.

 

Also no phone uses Acrylic lol. Drop that ion the floor and it would snap Lol .

 

The Lumia 950XL is decent, it's got a big size , big battery (3400mAh), Polycarbonate plastic back,

Only glass on the front.

 

OR there's my phone. 640XL, it's a big chunky monkey with a 3000mAh battery with 5.7" 720p  screen (the pixel density is just fine) and it lasts a long time on a charge and is polycarbonate plastic.

 

Only downside is lack of Storage built in (you need a microSD for serious storage)

[Monte_Carlo]

So I get to either charge my phone, or listen to music?  Great.  /s

 

Seriously... how much space does this thing take up, and more to the point.  Do we really need phones so thin that 3.5 mm is a must remove feature?  

[jaggysnake57]

im gonna piss my self if apple release a phone with the jack and they have trolled everyone

[DAL1189]

I see absolutely no point in killing the headphone jack. When will manufacturers realise that I, the consumer, don't want to sacrifice one of the most convenient things for "Thin and lightness".