Andy Rubin's Modular Essential phone announced

[Nowak]

9 hours ago, Spenser1337 said:

Why do we care about the headphone jack again?

 

9 hours ago, mrchow19910319 said:

Just face it,. headphone jacks arent coming back just like the optical drive we used to have.... 

With the headphone jack, to listen to music on my phone all I need to do is just plug in my headphones to the 3.5mm jack.

 

With no headphone jack, to listen to music on my phone I'd have to:

1. Hope that the batteries in both my phone and headphones have enough charge
2. Wait 20 or so minutes for the headphones/phone to charge if neither has enough charge/are dead
3. Pair my headphones with my phone
4. Deal with potential connection/interference issues

Having no 3.5mm jack turns a quick one step process into a lengthy four step process. It's massively inconvenient and nothing like the optical drive going obsolete, because when the optical drive went obsolete, we already had a suitable, more convenient replacement. We don't have that with the 3.5mm jack.

[mrchow19910319]

6 hours ago, Daring said:

 

you still dont get it. I am not ignoring the fact that it is gonna be a lot more tedious , what I say is we don't have a say in this. 

Is it gonna become annoying from our end? YES!

Can we do anything about it? NO! 

[mrchow19910319]

10 hours ago, dizmo said:

I think it's simply showing that not as many people care as the enthusiasts will lead you to believe. 

THIS.

 

yeah. totally true. I agree with you. people who are familiar with tech use tech in a different way than causal user... and we can;t represent everyone..

I still, do not care about phone without 3.5mm headphone jack... one dongle can solve the problem... 

[YamiYukiSenpai]

At first glance, I love the way the phone looks. It looks simple, yet elegant. Some may hate the way the front-facing camera is placed on the display itself, but I find the look a little unique. I’m actually glad it wasn’t placed at the bottom. Chatting will look weird and taking selfies will be extremely uncomfortable. We’ve seen it already from the latest Dell XPS laptop.

Its specs is similar to most 2017 Android flagship phone, so that’s good. However, I do wish it came with expandable storage, but I guess 128GB should be good enough for now.

On the down side, for a product called “Essential Phone”, I honestly think the lack of headphone jack is a bad move. The word “essential” in Merriam-Webster means “of the utmost importance”. Even though the headphone jack is starting to be phased-out by USB-C or Lightning (for iPhone), it’s still an essential component for smartphone users. Coming from someone who owns a Moto Z (a phone with no headphone jack), it’s extremely inconvenient, especially if you forget to bring a dongle with you, or lose it because it fell out of your pocket.

In addition, I believe its price will be a hurdle for this phone’s success. Essential is a new kid on the block, compared to Samsung and Apple. One reason why OnePlus was successful because they showed how a powerful smartphone don’t need a huge price tag. Though I hope people will see through it and the fact that this phone has 128GB of storage. In comparison, the Galaxy S8 costs a grand on Amazon right now. And that’s a 64GB device (half as much storage).

I’m looking forward to seeing this product reviewed, especially by Pocketnow and Mr. Mobile. And I hope it won’t be a colossal failure. I love rooting for underdogs that have potential.

[Trixanity]

1 hour ago, YamiYukiSenpai said:

At first glance, I love the way the phone looks. It looks simple, yet elegant. Some may hate the way the front-facing camera is placed on the display itself, but I find the look a little unique. I’m actually glad it wasn’t placed at the bottom. Chatting will look weird and taking selfies will be extremely uncomfortable. We’ve seen it already from the latest Dell XPS laptop.

Placement of front camera isn't all that relevant on a phone as you can just flip it upside down. Xiaomi Mi Mix demonstrated this. A minor inconvenience at the most.

 

However it's obviously not possible to do on a laptop which is why it's baffling Dell continues the practice despite numerous complaints.

[dizmo]

9 hours ago, Daring said:

 

With the headphone jack, to listen to music on my phone all I need to do is just plug in my headphones to the 3.5mm jack.

 

With no headphone jack, to listen to music on my phone I'd have to:

1. Hope that the batteries in both my phone and headphones have enough charge
2. Wait 20 or so minutes for the headphones/phone to charge if neither has enough charge/are dead
3. Pair my headphones with my phone
4. Deal with potential connection/interference issues

Having no 3.5mm jack turns a quick one step process into a lengthy four step process. It's massively inconvenient and nothing like the optical drive going obsolete, because when the optical drive went obsolete, we already had a suitable, more convenient replacement. We don't have that with the 3.5mm jack.

To be fair, the bolded points are the same for either set up.

You only have to pair once. I don't think that should be there as a reason.

If you buy quality stuff, you don't have connection issues.

 

There's also the dongle. Everyone who brings up this seems to forget that any good company includes one in the box, so yes, you can still use your headphones with this phone. You have to plug in one small, extra piece. I don't get why it's such a huge issue.

1 hour ago, YamiYukiSenpai said:

-snip-

In addition, I believe its price will be a hurdle for this phone’s success. Essential is a new kid on the block, compared to Samsung and Apple. One reason why OnePlus was successful because they showed how a powerful smartphone don’t need a huge price tag. Though I hope people will see through it and the fact that this phone has 128GB of storage. In comparison, the Galaxy S8 costs a grand on Amazon right now. And that’s a 64GB device (half as much storage).

I’m looking forward to seeing this product reviewed, especially by Pocketnow and Mr. Mobile. And I hope it won’t be a colossal failure. I love rooting for underdogs that have potential.

OnePlus was cheap because they wanted to gain traction, and that reason alone. They sold their phones at razor thin margins at the beginning, something that's not sustainable long term, which is why you see the yearly bump in price. They're playing the long game. It'll only be a year, maybe two until OnePlus phones are right around the same price as Samsung, if not slightly lower.

 

As for the Amazon price, yes, it does cost a grand. Canadian. This phone will be the same price, and frankly offers a better build and better features.

[Spenser1337]

14 hours ago, Daring said:

 

With the headphone jack, to listen to music on my phone all I need to do is just plug in my headphones to the 3.5mm jack.

 

With no headphone jack, to listen to music on my phone I'd have to:

1. Hope that the batteries in both my phone and headphones have enough charge
2. Wait 20 or so minutes for the headphones/phone to charge if neither has enough charge/are dead
3. Pair my headphones with my phone
4. Deal with potential connection/interference issues

Having no 3.5mm jack turns a quick one step process into a lengthy four step process. It's massively inconvenient and nothing like the optical drive going obsolete, because when the optical drive went obsolete, we already had a suitable, more convenient replacement. We don't have that with the 3.5mm jack.

Or you could just plug in the dongle they give you 

 

or plug in your brain 

 

[bob345]

A swing and a miss imo. The lack of a headphone Jack is the killer for me. If thinning the phone down that much requires that kind of sacrifice, your priorities are all wrong. Also, why is it that no-one does a dual camera right. Apple is the only one with a good setup. A standard phone focal length and a longer 50mm+ focal length is what we need, not this monochromatic or ultra wide crap.

[Nowak]

17 hours ago, Spenser1337 said:

Or you could just plug in the dongle they give you 

 

or plug in your brain 

 

Dongles are easily lost. Hell, today I spent 20 minutes looking for the USB Type-C to Type-A adapter my phone came with just to test something out on my laptop. They're not an elegant solution by any stretch of the means either.

This too:

1 minute ago, bob345 said:

That's all fine and dandy for a digital signal, but guess what. Audio is NOT digital. Somewhere down the line that data stream needs to be converted to an analog signal with a digital to analog converter so you can listen to your audio. By removing the headphone Jack, they are also removing the dac that goes along with it. What this means is that the dac then has to be moved off the phone. Just like with the iPhone 7, to make the dongles even work, they have to have a small dac and op amp built in on one end of that dongle. This leads to very low quality sound because of the low quality dac's being used. It's allot more than "just use an adapter it's the same"

Human ears can't hear digital audio. There still needs to be a conversion to analog somewhere. Most of the time, low-quality DACs get used in adapters, which lowers sound quality. It's not a solution at all.

[bob345]

17 hours ago, Spenser1337 said:

Or you could just plug in the dongle they give you 

 

or plug in your brain 

 

That's all fine and dandy for a digital signal, but guess what. Audio is NOT digital. Somewhere down the line that data stream needs to be converted to an analog signal with a digital to analog converter so you can listen to your audio. By removing the headphone Jack, they are also removing the dac that goes along with it. What this means is that the dac then has to be moved off the phone. Just like with the iPhone 7, to make the dongles even work, they have to have a small dac and op amp built in on one end of that dongle. This leads to very low quality sound because of the low quality dac's being used. It's allot more than "just use an adapter it's the same"

[SpaceGhostC2C]

On 5/30/2017 at 2:37 PM, mrchow19910319 said:

Just face it,. headphone jacks arent coming back just like the optical drive we used to have.... 

They would need to leave first in order to come back...

 

On 5/30/2017 at 5:05 PM, mrchow19910319 said:

my point is that we actually don't have a say in this. 

On 5/31/2017 at 6:38 AM, mrchow19910319 said:

you still dont get it. I am not ignoring the fact that it is gonna be a lot more tedious , what I say is we don't have a say in this. 

Is it gonna become annoying from our end? YES!

Can we do anything about it? NO! 

Actually, it is the other way around. We are the only ones to have a say in this: we can always buy the product we want, and ignore the one that annoys us.

We don't need to buy this phone. Most of us don't even need to buy a phone to begin with, as we already have perfectly working phones. And we certainly don't need to pay premium prices for phones that can't be bothered to give us $0.01 features we actually like.

So it is up to us. If we go and buy jack-less phones like there's no tomorrow, we can't blame it on anyone else.

 

Quote

just imagine how many people swear "will never buy a laptop without a cd drive"

People just don't care about CD drives anymore, because they aren't using as many CDs with their computer. They buy the CD-less computers. If they couldn't do without it, or if they had to carry an external drive all the time, there would probably be more models with it. Not that there isn't any: I still haven't had a single laptop without an optical drive.

 

Quote

 

We either use dongle, or use bluetooth headphones. We adapt, we can't decide where the trend goes. 

I know that's how Google sees things, but it's sad to see they have convinced you  

We are not talking food or any other basic need here. We buy what we want to. We better own up to it.

[mrchow19910319]

43 minutes ago, SpaceGhostC2C said:

 

you think that a few of us stopped buying a certain phone can stop the manufacturer from producing it? 

I think that most of the people here at this forum is too tech savvy. we are the minorities. 

[SpaceGhostC2C]

15 minutes ago, mrchow19910319 said:

you think that a few of us stopped buying a certain phone

A few, a hundred, millions... We don't decide for a few nor for millions: we only decide for ourselves. Do what you want, buy what you want... or don't complain.

15 minutes ago, mrchow19910319 said:

can stop the manufacturer from producing it? 

Why would we want the manufacturer to stop producing it? You are getting things very wrong: we don't need a ban nor a boycott for phones without headphone jacks, nor anything like that. All we need is to buy the products we do like, which do have the features we want, headphone jacks or whatever may be. Not for manufacturers to stop producing anything, but to have some manufacturer producing what we want. I don't care if manufacturers continue to make jack-less phones for those who like them.

The only trap is for people who don't want a certain design to go and convince themselves they have no choice but to burn $600 on it.

If we buy only the products that cater to our needs/desires, supply will be there (unless it's not just a minority, but a tiny ,maybe one-man minority ).

 

15 minutes ago, mrchow19910319 said:

I think that most of the people here at this forum is too tech savvy. we are the minorities. 

Whatever people in this forum may be, I can guarantee that headphone jacks aren't a "tech-savvy thing": indeed, the "tech-savvy minority" is more likely to know how to use a different kind of headset; most people will have an easier time with their well-known jack.

[mrchow19910319]

1 minute ago, SpaceGhostC2C said:

 

okay... makes sense

 

[Trixanity]

5 hours ago, bob345 said:

Also, why is it that no-one does a dual camera right. Apple is the only one with a good setup. A standard phone focal length and a longer 50mm+ focal length is what we need, not this monochromatic or ultra wide crap.

Apple doesn't get it right either then.

 

They might get it right for you but the monochromatic sensor has the ability to take a lot better photos than any single sensor setup can, so unless you need telephoto or ultra wide-angle for specific use cases, then you won't gain much from it.

[Spenser1337]

6 hours ago, bob345 said:

That's all fine and dandy for a digital signal, but guess what. Audio is NOT digital. Somewhere down the line that data stream needs to be converted to an analog signal with a digital to analog converter so you can listen to your audio. By removing the headphone Jack, they are also removing the dac that goes along with it. What this means is that the dac then has to be moved off the phone. Just like with the iPhone 7, to make the dongles even work, they have to have a small dac and op amp built in on one end of that dongle. This leads to very low quality sound because of the low quality dac's being used. It's allot more than "just use an adapter it's the same"

HTC didn't do that, they actually have an extremely advanced dac. Much better than regular phones 

[michaelocarroll007]

On 5/30/2017 at 8:37 AM, mrchow19910319 said:

Just face it,. headphone jacks arent coming back just like the optical drive we used to have.... 

Optical drives best thing ive seen go away Especially in laptops. So much wasted space. Desktops just look cleaner without em. Headphones otherwise im not to sad but see it having more downsides then the loss of optical drives because digital downloads and digital drivers being more up to date and better then the 3 year old disk in the box gave it actual reasons to not exist. Not many USB C headphones out there that show a clear advantage and everyone wanting to use headphones that way.  

[bob345]

3 hours ago, Trixanity said:

Apple doesn't get it right either then.

 

They might get it right for you but the monochromatic sensor has the ability to take a lot better photos than any single sensor setup can, so unless you need telephoto or ultra wide-angle for specific use cases, then you won't gain much from it.

With the poor in phone processing, having a sensor with no rgb filter makes effectively no difference. Just like with the "Leica" huawei. Having a second camera with a longer focal length is the only way a dual camera system males sense

[Trixanity]

1 hour ago, bob345 said:

With the poor in phone processing, having a sensor with no rgb filter makes effectively no difference. Just like with the "Leica" huawei. Having a second camera with a longer focal length is the only way a dual camera system males sense

Until recently, Huawei had an awful ISP in their Kirin SoCs. I doubt the new ones are on par with their competitors. Their software isn't as good as the rest of the industry either. On top of that they use very pedestrian sensors and subpar apertures.

The fact that they can actually take some really good photos and have received praise is nothing short of a miracle. Their bokeh is also superior to Apple's.

 

Imagine what a Samsung or HTC could do with such a setup. Qualcomm is also pushing for companies to use RGB + Mono sensors. I'm guessing it's not some funny idea they just got.

 

As far as I know the only thing Apple uses that telephoto lense is for 2x optical zoom and bokeh. So calling it 'the best' or 'the only reasonable choice' is a bit odd.

 

Cameras are already fighting physics in the smartphone space. Sensor improvements are incremental at best. The biggest improvements to photo quality right now comes from software tricks like what Google does.

Anything you can do to improve photo quality is good and it appears using monochromatic sensors can help alleviate the physical limitations of smartphone sensors. LG's and Apple's approach seems to help take different photos, not improve normal photos (unless we talk bokeh which other companies do better than Apple for example).

 

So I really don't get where you're coming from.

[PlayStation 2]

Seems very mediocre for the price. If you want a phone without a headphone jack, you might as well get an iPhone 7 and if you do want a headphone jack, you have far better options for the money and even lower.

[mach]

14 hours ago, bob345 said:

they are also removing the dac that goes along with it. What this means is that the dac then has to be moved off the phone

No. There is still dac on the phone for the speakers. Going wireless just mean we are producing extra, unnecessary electronics to pollute the earth. 

 

 

Removing the headphone jack is just pure evil.

A dirty scummy trick to make consumers buy their headphones. 

With 3.5 mm jack the normal consumers know it's plug and play for any normal headphones, but with wireless connection, they can be tricked into buying "XX certified" brands, for easier pairing, gimmicks etc.

For dongle solution, proprietary / certified dongles means more MONEY for those greedy bastards.

 

Fanboys can enjoy the "modern wireless life" or their "clean and sleek design" as much as they want. They cannot deny that not having analog jack creates more hassle. 

wireless --> one more thing to charge

dongle --> one more thing to carry/lose

[bob345]

1 hour ago, mach said:

No. There is still dac on the phone for the speakers. Going wireless just mean we are producing extra, unnecessary electronics to pollute the earth. 

 

 

Removing the headphone jack is just pure evil.

A dirty scummy trick to make consumers buy their headphones. 

With 3.5 mm jack the normal consumers know it's plug and play for any normal headphones, but with wireless connection, they can be tricked into buying "XX certified" brands, for easier pairing, gimmicks etc.

For dongle solution, proprietary / certified dongles means more MONEY for those greedy bastards.

 

Fanboys can enjoy the "modern wireless life" or their "clean and sleek design" as much as they want. They cannot deny that not having analog jack creates more hassle. 

wireless --> one more thing to charge

dongle --> one more thing to carry/lose

The dac for the speaker is going to be a separate system, there is still no analog audio coming from the usb-c connection.

[mach]

1 minute ago, bob345 said:

The dac for the speaker is going to be a separate system, there is still no analog audio coming from the usb-c connection.

Yes I know. That's why I said removing headphone jack means there will be extra circuitry (dac, amp, wireless etc.) to be made for it to work, thus costing us more money and further damaging the environment