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I seriously wanted to like the Pixel, I think Apple's business model is entirely harmful, but the lack of a headphone jack on the flagship Google phone is reall

I seriously wanted to like the Pixel, I think Apple's business model is entirely harmful, but the lack of a headphone jack on the flagship Google phone is really the last straw. We've lost so much good tech over the years to reduce costs, that I just can't accept a premium phone dropping such a global standard for no good reason at all. Next time I buy a phone I'll vote with my wallet and go with more consumer friendly options.

suby 9y ago
Same here. I just picked up a new phone the other day, and I immediately dropped the pixel from consideration because of its lack of a headphone jack.
- arkades 9y ago
  If not an iPhone or a pixel, what decent phones are left in the running?
  - chucky_z 9y ago
    Check out mid-range stuff. There's an absolute treasure trove. I've been using a Moto G5 Plus (the 4GB RAM model) for some time now and it's an absolute treat.
    - pier25 9y ago
      Me too. Other than the mediocre camera I've been really happy with it.
    - remir 9y ago
      How regular is Motorola/Lenovo regarding security updates?
      - chucky_z 9y ago
        Pretty regular, I will say they haven't seemed to put forth a patch for WPA2 yet, but I'm also unsure how fully vulnerable it is mostly because Android can be such a customized beast.
        remir 9y ago
        I wish there was more Android One devices in North-America. Cheap, good, "stock Android" + garanteed updates.
    - test1235 9y ago
      Another vote for the G5 here. It's a little larger than I'd like, but other than that it's been perfect for me.
    - flyinghamster 9y ago
      LG Stylo 2 Plus here, and I heartily agree on going with mid-range (and I prefer phablets as well). There's a Stylo 3 Plus now, which fortunately still has the headphone jack, bumps the SOC from a 430 to a 435, and the display to 1920x1080. Neither have the fastest SOC out there, but still plenty for my needs, and both have an SD slot. So far, I've been very happy with my Stylo 2 Plus. Battery life is amazing (the battery is usually at about 75% when I plug it in for the night), the screen is sharp in spite of being 720p, and plenty bright. I can't see spending more than $250 on a phone these days, except for bragging rights.
  - jfaat 9y ago
    an iPhone 6s, most likely. i am in a similar camp of wanting to have certain ‘legacy’ tech wrt my laptop. my 2011 17” mpb will be my daily driver until it is pried from my cold dead hands (well hopefully its cold dead shell is pried from my living hands). i, however, didn’t feel the need to cry about it when the computers didn’t perfectly align with my desires though. maybe people just like complaining?
  - sz4kerto 9y ago
    I know it's universally hated here on HN, but Samsung. Their top-end models just work; they have some UI bloat but some of that is also useful. They look good, are generally well-supported, good cameras, great screens, good battery. (This applies to S8 and above, S7 and below were bad.)
    - voltagex_ 9y ago
      The problem with the S8 and S8+ is finding glass screen protectors for it. The only one I can find locally is $40, and the curved edges means it cracks really easily. Yes, I tried it for a day without a screen protector and ended up with scratches on the screen.
      - endorphone 9y ago
        I've had my GS8 since its release and there are zero scratches on it. I have it in a case, but otherwise no screen protector, and no issue. I've dropped it several times, and today had the scariest incident yet -- set it on the counter and opened the cupboard to have a big can of split pea soup fall and smack right off the screen. No problem. Scratching definitely isn't a problem. Cracking is a risk, but a basic case dramatically reduces the odds of that.
  - owaislone 9y ago
    The new Nokia devices seems to be pretty good in the mid-range category.
  - ericd 9y ago
    The first Pixel is a good phone, still very performant.
    - bitexploder 9y ago
      Pixel is my last big brand phone. Next one needs to run Linux and not be tied to Apple or Google. It has all gotten a little too controlled and walled. Pixel is an amazing phone and aside from the privacy aspects... I can't see needing more phone. The camera is better than any phone camera I have ever used. We need to get away from the Android / iOS duopoly
      - ericd 9y ago
        If you find such a thing, and it isn't completely godawful, let me know.
        bitexploder 9y ago
        Heh. Will do. Sony Xperia runs Jolla, that is something. We will see. I am guessing it means sacrificing a little hardware quality, but we are all kind of spoiled as it is.
        ericd 9y ago
        Interesting, I'll check it out. Thanks!
  - ericflo 9y ago
    I've been reading great things about the new LG V30.
  - waddlesworth 9y ago
    The OnePlus 5 is pretty awesome.
    - stronglikedan 9y ago
      How's the display on that? I'm on a Note 3, and I really like the fact that I've always been able to see Samsung's AMOLED display in the sunlight. I also have bad eyes, so I tend to keep the display pretty bright in the dark. It's always seemed so much more vivid than other phones I've compared it to, but that's been a while. EDIT: And where the heck do you get one in the US?
      - Yizahi 9y ago
        Oneplus 3T (exact same panel as in 5) has good legibility in sunlight, I had no issues with it. As for vivid, you can configure display calibration on Oneplus to suit your taste. Unfortunately there are no gamma sliders for fine grained control, only 3 or 4 predefined settings.
    - glogla 9y ago
      OnePlus phones are a great Nexus replacement - they have good hardware (but not the best one) and near-stock system for reasonable price, and as enthusiast phone, they get a lot of community support from like LineageOS and stuff.
      - arkades 9y ago
        I’ll have to check that out. I’m stuck in the odd position of being tired of Apple’s “you can play in our sandbox”’approach, but I’m loathe to move to Android and give google what remnants of privacy I’ve managed to retain.
freedomben 9y ago
Absolutely. Bluetooth is not there yet. I still get stuttering and low quality all the time when using Bluetooth. I want a headphone jack, and I'll find someone who will provide one and vote with my dollars.
- ReverseCold 9y ago
  > I still get stuttering and low quality all the time when using Bluetooth. Bluetooth works great for me (good enough quality, no stuttering) - what kills it is latency. Latency makes watching videos very uncomfortable. There's also faint static in nearly every pair of bluetooth earbuds I've tried (and not just cheap ones, $100+ ones do this too).
  - loeber 9y ago
    Have you considered that the problem (static, etc.) might not be on part of the bluetooth earphones, but rather on your phone's bluetooth hardware? I use an iPhone with bluetooth earphones all day and it's a great experience.
    - ReverseCold 9y ago
      The ones I currently use have the same issues on both MBP and Nexus 5X, so I doubt it.
  - kbyatnal 9y ago
    I haven't had any of those problems with the AirPods. No static, no latency. There's some issues with reliably connecting though.
    - ClassyJacket 9y ago
      I had barely any issues with Airpods on iOS 10, but iOS 11 absolutely made them terrible. Constant stuttering, disconnecting randomly, falling to connect. Shame. I'll be moving to an Android now.
    - 9y ago
drakenot 9y ago
Everyone lamenting the loss of the headphone jack reminds me of the same people lamenting the loss of the CD-ROM drive in the MacBooks. The headphone jack is a legacy, bulky port. I would not be surprised to see a port-less phone in the next few years. Apple has a really good track record of dropping things at the right time: floppy, CD-ROM, Flash, etc. At each of those steps there were people decrying the loss of these things. Today however, most people don’t miss any of them. They made the right choice then and I’m going to give them the benefit of the doubt now.
- bauerd 9y ago
  I spent a good amount of money on decent headphones and if I can't use them with my phone without a dongle that's a no-no. I get that "the future is portless" but the future hasn't arrived yet and until then I'm not gonna hand out 800EUR for something I can't use with my headphones with.
  - Spivak 9y ago
    But if you're the type of person that has one good pair of headphones then attach the adapter to them all the time and just pretend that the port on your phone is a weird shape. I get that it's not ideal and that adapters are awkward but it seems like it's such a minor inconvenience for your use case. I would expect that audiophiles are used to adapters to go between 2.5mm, 3.5mm, and 1/4" stereo already. What's one more?
    - bauerd 9y ago
      I get where you're coming from but the "What's one more?" idea is what led to this whole donglemania. Dongles are conceived of bridges into a brighter future but no thanks I'll happily live in the past for now.
    - dpkonofa 9y ago
      I just wanted to say that this is a really great point and, inevitably, the answer from people with these objections is always the same - they just prefer what they already have and are comfortable with. It's such a mild inconvenience that they're already ok with in every other scenario but, for some reason, this time it's completely different. It doesn't make sense.
anilshanbhag 9y ago
FYI There is a USB-C to headphone jack cable provided in the box.
- JohnTHaller 9y ago
  Unfortunately, it's a cheap DAC/amp dongle as, unlike some other phones, the Pixel 2 doesn't output analog audio via USB-C using the phone's built-in DAC/amp. And the Pixel 2 XL has its gain set really low for said dongle, meaning you're going to have difficulty driving lots of headphones.
  - Spivak 9y ago
    That's really unfortunate. Do any phones do it right?
    - extr 9y ago
      iPhone 7 dongle audio quality is apparently fantastic, no reason to think iPhone 8 isn't the same. http://www.kenrockwell.com/apple/lightning-adapter-audio-quality.htm http://www.kenrockwell.com/apple/lightning-adapter-audio-qua...
      - cstrat 9y ago
        Oh wow thats a pretty awesome read
      - masklinn 9y ago
        > This tiny adapter houses a microscopic stereo digital-to-analog converter (DAC), a stereo headphone amplifier, a microphone preamplifier and monophonic analog-to-digital converter (ADC) and power converters to run this all. OK what the hell, I thought they were just outputting analog through Lightning from the internal DAC but instead they put a second conversion chain in the adapter? Damn. > You need iOS 10 for the adapter to work on older devices. iOS 9 and before predate the headphone-jack-less iPhones, but if you have iOS 10 it works great on my old iPhone 5S — not that you'd need it to. And it works just fine on older lightning devices too, that's really impressive.
pier25 9y ago
> We've lost so much good tech over the years to reduce costs I don't know what the reason is, but I doubt it's a matter of cost.
- colordrops 9y ago
  Why do you doubt that?
  - pier25 9y ago
    Because even if manufacturers did really save some money (which is debatable) it doesn't make sense to save some cents on an $800 product. For example in terms of parts all phones already have a DA conversor and an amp to be able to send analog audio to the speakers. The actual headphone jack costs close to nothing. It might even be more expensive for Apple to manufacture the lightning to headphone adapter...
exogen 9y ago
> I think Apple's business model is entirely harmful Between Apple and Google, you think APPLE'S business model is the harmful one?! We're talking about (1) actually charging for their products vs. (2) tracking your every move and collecting all the personal information about you they possibly can so they can sell you ads better, right? I'm actually not sure I can even name a tech company with a business model as simple and honest as Apple's.
- evv 9y ago
  I reluctantly agree. Apple has a bunch of dirty practices that makes me thing twice about buying their products, but their market position does incentivize them to protect my privacy. In contrast, Google is incentivized to provide a thick pipe between the highest bidder and the screen in my hand.
- bb88 9y ago
  Honestly, I feel like this is an argument for watching HBO vs NBC, say. HBO makes a "honest" product and charges for it, while NBC uses the platform to sell advertising. NBC must therefore be "dishonest" because they're showing you 30 second ads. Despite the fact the business model of serving content for with ads has been a successful (and accepted) business model for decades. Google's privacy policy is open. No one is forcing you to use it, just as no one is forcing you to watch NBC. https://www.google.com/policies/privacy/ https://www.google.com/policies/privacy/
  - extr 9y ago
    It is a similar argument, but I think there is an important qualitative difference between TVs and smartphones. One is inherently passive, I interact with it on my own terms. The worst case is they show too many ads and I get pissed and cancel my service. I have some power in the relationship, they need my money month to month. The other is an integral part of my daily life and knows virtually everything about me, who I communicate with, where I go, and is almost mandatory in modern society. I have no control over the software that runs on it, and the organization that does control it already has my money. If I want to exit the relationship, there are maybe one or two serious competitors (depending on if you include non-google android).
extr 9y ago
I really want/need a new phone but the whole headphone situation has left a really bad taste in my mouth. Not usually one to get worked up over the minor details of smartphones but it actually makes me angry thinking of buying one of these phones and then dealing with fucking dongles for the next 3 years. There's a reason "pass me the aux" is a meme and not "pair your phone with my bluetooth speaker, oh wait it's not connecting, let me try disconnecting, do you see it? Yeah it's GHS-9013 I think, okay, I hit the pair button, do you see it now?"
- modzu 9y ago
  so true. actually the whole phone market is dogshit right now it sure seems like things are getting worse, when all my phone upgrades have been forced: 1. original iphone wipes itself when i connect it to a new computer. ouch. my own itunes account, but somehow not recognized, and zap. went to android after this. 2. first android was the nexus. it had a known hardware bug where the soft buttons were being triggered randomly without being touched. started to drive me insane. 3. enter a unibody aluminum HTC. owned it for 3 years. i missed the sdcard slot but grew to love it anyway because it was durable as hell. it fell down a flight of concrete stairs. then carried on about its day. eventually the camera died on it (all pics started coming out hazy and red). i still see people using htc 7s even now. 4. enter nexus 6p. decent phone. screen was not very bright which was annoying outside but otherwise checks all the boxes. and it still gets the latest updates-- thing runs on oreo! but now its falling apart. the glass at the back broke twice, the sim is loose, gps works half the time, the plastic bottom fell off.. 5. and so here we are today. cannot find another 6p. the pixel looks worse in many ways (fugly and bezels are even bigger while the software is the same). the v2 with no headphone jack?? and all these phones with glass backs that are actually even thicker than their predecessors that are obviously not going to last very long (anyone out there have a screen shatter?? lets double those odds). everyone using their own bloatware and not updating anything... android ones only really available in eurasia... ugh. do not want to crawl back to apple. someone help? blackberry, where are you?? lol
  - exhilaration 9y ago
    About 3 weeks ago I sold my Nexus 6p and bought a used Pixel XL (1st gen obviously), and it's amazing. You should definitely consider it!
iamben 9y ago
Absolutely. I'll be totally fine with the lack of headphone jack when wireless headphones last 72+ hours on a single charge, or they charge wirelessly from the bag when I walk into my flat. Until then, wireless headphones are something terrible I have to put up with to make the gym easier, and absolutely not something I want to consider using as I work during the day.
- photojosh 9y ago
  Really? I found losing the wires (that snagged, pulled them out of my ears, etc) to be a fantastic advantage that far outweighs the inconvenience of having to charge them.
- glogla 9y ago
  Don't forget they should switch from computer to phone in less than three seconds.
technotony 9y ago
I do hear this as a common complaint, but there's an adapter for this so I'm not sure what the big deal is? http://www.trustedreviews.com/news/google-pixel-2-headphone-adapter-3307893 http://www.trustedreviews.com/news/google-pixel-2-headphone-...
martin1975 9y ago
The headphone jack is one of those things no one should ever remove. I despise having to charge an additional set of hardware, namely bluetooth headsets ... I had the Pixel 2 in my cart thinking I could convince myself of a no 3.5 mm future, and like hell I could so I aborted the checkout. At this rate, if they do not bring it back, I will wait until I can get superb USB-C headsets inexpensively... or most likely, Samsung S9 is going to be my next upgrade. Loved Google's Nexus and even the Pixel 1, but they have gotten complacent, do not listen anymore and actually believe that copying Apple in any way shape or form makes them look better. Can't wait for that Librem phone either. That one sounds better than anything else Google has to offer at least for the HN crowd, if not wider...
- modzu 9y ago
  never heard of the librem until now, thanks. would be amazing if it happens
skrowl 9y ago
Lack of headphone jack on Pixel XL 2 is what drove me from my Pixel XL into the loving embrace of my new Samsung Note8. There's no excuse to drop headphone jack.
sergers 9y ago
Samsung understands the need, and the headphone jack in note 8 and next s9 is a feature
jherdman 9y ago
> ... but the lack of a headphone jack on the flagship Google phone is really the last straw. Look, this is inevitable. The titans have decided this thing is dead, so it's going to happen. The thing that pissed me off most about the iPhone 7 and convinced me to leave wasn't the lack of a headphone jack, it's that Apple was/is confused about what to do about it. You can't go making USB-C only computers and then have all of your phones using something different. I get that this is shitty, but at least if we decide that USB-C is the way forward we can end the Great Dongle Wars.
- modzu 9y ago
  right???
- Bud 9y ago
  Apple is not confused. Lightning is a better and much smaller port for phone use. And there are over a billion Lightning devices out there. There's no compelling reason to switch to anything else, certainly not to USB-C. And no, moving iPhone to USB-C would of course not end the Great Dongle Wars, nor even get rid of a significant chunk of them. Most dongles are necessitated by all kinds of old ports, mostly video, on laptops.
partiallypro 9y ago
I honestly don't care about a headphone jack on a phone, I do care about the wireless charging...which the Pixel 2 lacks. Now that every phone has it (including the iPhone now,) it's baffling that Google felt it necessary to leave it out. I'm at the point where I'd be happy to see Microsoft make their own Android phone, use the Arrow launcher to hook into Windows.
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vikascoder 9y ago
Do the blue tooth headfone proponents ONLY use headfones on phones? How do you use them on laptops and computers with no bluetooth capability? or on Roku remote? or on flights without buying some other crap dongle or adapter? I run out of charge on my gym blutooths soo often, who are these folks who only have to charge their headphones once in 3 months on daily use? Bluetooth could be an addon feature to a headfone if you wanna go cordless but why shut the effin gate on the device side by removing the jack altogether? (hyperventilating now)
- jamesrcole 9y ago
  That's the nature of change. It's awkward, and never smooth. I'm one of those people who believe that eventually all consumer devices will use wireless headphones. It's not going to happen instantaneously, and the transition will be awkward, but eventually it will be complete and issues like you're talking about will be non-issues. This kind of thing has happened many times before. Did USB stick proponents ONLY use USB sticks? What about computers that only use 3.5 inch floppy disks?
- gyaru 9y ago
  It's also an incredible hassle to keep pairing if you change the device quite a lot (between pc/phone) in my opinion.
heroprotagonist 9y ago
I ordered one. It came with an adapter. It's not a bad adapter, really. It's no larger than the plugs to make the connections, and connects firmly. What I lament is the inability to charge and use headphones at the same time with this adapter. They have another adapter "coming soon" in their store which will do both. That said, it's been 25 hours since my last charge and I'm still at 71% battery, so it's less impactful than I thought it would be. I'm a little concerned about the reports of screen burn-in I've seen on reddit, but the other rumors about discoloration did not impact my model, so it's just 'wait and see' now for me. Overall, I really like it.
sapphire_tomb 9y ago
The number of "but AirPods are great" comments on this entire thread is hilarious. Not relevant. The article is about Google's phone, not the iPhone. Google have arguably made their BT stack worse in Oreo. Since it got the upgrade at the start of the summer, my Pixel XL v1 no longer plays nicely with my car, and is pretty poor with my BT headphones. Even if I bought the fabled AirPods, they wouldn't use the W1 magic to talk to my phone, so I sincerely doubt they'd fix any problems I have. Luckily, I have the fallback of the 3.5mm jack, and so largely the impact of these BT issues are small for me. But the article mentions that the Pixel 2s are also suffering BT issues, and Google won't even comment on them. If I buy one and find the same issues with it, then I have to rely on the dongle to get music from my phone to my car, and I can't charge it at the same time any more.
- LateToBTC 9y ago
  The AirPods are Apple's best product since the iPhone IMO.
- jamesrcole 9y ago
  > The number of "but AirPods are great" comments on this entire thread is hilarious. Not relevant. The article is about Google's phone, not the iPhone. Except that a lot of the complaints are not specific to the Google phone. They're about removing the headphone jack, and what people claim are inherent problems with doing so. If AirPods can be used to counter such claims then they're definitely relevant.
mtgx 9y ago
I like how they used the excuse that they did it to reduce bezels. Does this look like it has small bezels to anyone? https://cdn2.gsmarena.com/vv/pics/google/google-pixel-2-1.jpg https://cdn2.gsmarena.com/vv/pics/google/google-pixel-2-1.jp... Getting a little tired of Google's obvious lies (still bitter about their lie about OIS in the past, and now the dual-camera, too).
chewyland 9y ago
Yikes, I thought the anti-headphone jack movement would have died by now. Get rid of it, all of it, along with plastic media drives and plastic media, game cartridges, magnetic hard drives, SIM cards, full size USB ports...all this crap, go away already, please.
reacweb 9y ago
I love headphone jack and I do not like very much bluetooth (except Hands-Free Car Kit). But I also watch many TV series where the characters are always using tiny earbuds. People want to be as cool as their idols. The first generation of bluetooth headset was cumbersome. With the Apple touch and some technical improvements, this can be a success.
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Shorel 9y ago
The headphone jack is not being removed for cellphone business reasons, it is being removed for music industry reasons. It is a consumer hostile move, no matter the quality of the wireless earbuds. I speculate they probably negotiated this as part of the iTunes library access some years ago.

suby 9y ago

Same here. I just picked up a new phone the other day, and I immediately dropped the pixel from consideration because of its lack of a headphone jack.

arkades 9y ago
If not an iPhone or a pixel, what decent phones are left in the running?
- chucky_z 9y ago
  Check out mid-range stuff. There's an absolute treasure trove. I've been using a Moto G5 Plus (the 4GB RAM model) for some time now and it's an absolute treat.
  - pier25 9y ago
    Me too. Other than the mediocre camera I've been really happy with it.
  - remir 9y ago
    How regular is Motorola/Lenovo regarding security updates?
    - chucky_z 9y ago
      Pretty regular, I will say they haven't seemed to put forth a patch for WPA2 yet, but I'm also unsure how fully vulnerable it is mostly because Android can be such a customized beast.
      - remir 9y ago
        I wish there was more Android One devices in North-America. Cheap, good, "stock Android" + garanteed updates.
  - test1235 9y ago
    Another vote for the G5 here. It's a little larger than I'd like, but other than that it's been perfect for me.
  - flyinghamster 9y ago
    LG Stylo 2 Plus here, and I heartily agree on going with mid-range (and I prefer phablets as well). There's a Stylo 3 Plus now, which fortunately still has the headphone jack, bumps the SOC from a 430 to a 435, and the display to 1920x1080. Neither have the fastest SOC out there, but still plenty for my needs, and both have an SD slot. So far, I've been very happy with my Stylo 2 Plus. Battery life is amazing (the battery is usually at about 75% when I plug it in for the night), the screen is sharp in spite of being 720p, and plenty bright. I can't see spending more than $250 on a phone these days, except for bragging rights.
- jfaat 9y ago
  an iPhone 6s, most likely. i am in a similar camp of wanting to have certain ‘legacy’ tech wrt my laptop. my 2011 17” mpb will be my daily driver until it is pried from my cold dead hands (well hopefully its cold dead shell is pried from my living hands). i, however, didn’t feel the need to cry about it when the computers didn’t perfectly align with my desires though. maybe people just like complaining?
- sz4kerto 9y ago
  I know it's universally hated here on HN, but Samsung. Their top-end models just work; they have some UI bloat but some of that is also useful. They look good, are generally well-supported, good cameras, great screens, good battery. (This applies to S8 and above, S7 and below were bad.)
  - voltagex_ 9y ago
    The problem with the S8 and S8+ is finding glass screen protectors for it. The only one I can find locally is $40, and the curved edges means it cracks really easily. Yes, I tried it for a day without a screen protector and ended up with scratches on the screen.
    - endorphone 9y ago
      I've had my GS8 since its release and there are zero scratches on it. I have it in a case, but otherwise no screen protector, and no issue. I've dropped it several times, and today had the scariest incident yet -- set it on the counter and opened the cupboard to have a big can of split pea soup fall and smack right off the screen. No problem. Scratching definitely isn't a problem. Cracking is a risk, but a basic case dramatically reduces the odds of that.
- owaislone 9y ago
  The new Nokia devices seems to be pretty good in the mid-range category.
- ericd 9y ago
  The first Pixel is a good phone, still very performant.
  - bitexploder 9y ago
    Pixel is my last big brand phone. Next one needs to run Linux and not be tied to Apple or Google. It has all gotten a little too controlled and walled. Pixel is an amazing phone and aside from the privacy aspects... I can't see needing more phone. The camera is better than any phone camera I have ever used. We need to get away from the Android / iOS duopoly
    - ericd 9y ago
      If you find such a thing, and it isn't completely godawful, let me know.
      - bitexploder 9y ago
        Heh. Will do. Sony Xperia runs Jolla, that is something. We will see. I am guessing it means sacrificing a little hardware quality, but we are all kind of spoiled as it is.
        ericd 9y ago
        Interesting, I'll check it out. Thanks!
- ericflo 9y ago
  I've been reading great things about the new LG V30.
- waddlesworth 9y ago
  The OnePlus 5 is pretty awesome.
  - stronglikedan 9y ago
    How's the display on that? I'm on a Note 3, and I really like the fact that I've always been able to see Samsung's AMOLED display in the sunlight. I also have bad eyes, so I tend to keep the display pretty bright in the dark. It's always seemed so much more vivid than other phones I've compared it to, but that's been a while. EDIT: And where the heck do you get one in the US?
    - Yizahi 9y ago
      Oneplus 3T (exact same panel as in 5) has good legibility in sunlight, I had no issues with it. As for vivid, you can configure display calibration on Oneplus to suit your taste. Unfortunately there are no gamma sliders for fine grained control, only 3 or 4 predefined settings.
  - glogla 9y ago
    OnePlus phones are a great Nexus replacement - they have good hardware (but not the best one) and near-stock system for reasonable price, and as enthusiast phone, they get a lot of community support from like LineageOS and stuff.
    - arkades 9y ago
      I’ll have to check that out. I’m stuck in the odd position of being tired of Apple’s “you can play in our sandbox”’approach, but I’m loathe to move to Android and give google what remnants of privacy I’ve managed to retain.

freedomben 9y ago

Absolutely. Bluetooth is not there yet. I still get stuttering and low quality all the time when using Bluetooth. I want a headphone jack, and I'll find someone who will provide one and vote with my dollars.

ReverseCold 9y ago
> I still get stuttering and low quality all the time when using Bluetooth. Bluetooth works great for me (good enough quality, no stuttering) - what kills it is latency. Latency makes watching videos very uncomfortable. There's also faint static in nearly every pair of bluetooth earbuds I've tried (and not just cheap ones, $100+ ones do this too).
- loeber 9y ago
  Have you considered that the problem (static, etc.) might not be on part of the bluetooth earphones, but rather on your phone's bluetooth hardware? I use an iPhone with bluetooth earphones all day and it's a great experience.
  - ReverseCold 9y ago
    The ones I currently use have the same issues on both MBP and Nexus 5X, so I doubt it.
- kbyatnal 9y ago
  I haven't had any of those problems with the AirPods. No static, no latency. There's some issues with reliably connecting though.
  - ClassyJacket 9y ago
    I had barely any issues with Airpods on iOS 10, but iOS 11 absolutely made them terrible. Constant stuttering, disconnecting randomly, falling to connect. Shame. I'll be moving to an Android now.
  - 9y ago

drakenot 9y ago

Everyone lamenting the loss of the headphone jack reminds me of the same people lamenting the loss of the CD-ROM drive in the MacBooks. The headphone jack is a legacy, bulky port. I would not be surprised to see a port-less phone in the next few years. Apple has a really good track record of dropping things at the right time: floppy, CD-ROM, Flash, etc. At each of those steps there were people decrying the loss of these things. Today however, most people don’t miss any of them. They made the right choice then and I’m going to give them the benefit of the doubt now.

bauerd 9y ago
I spent a good amount of money on decent headphones and if I can't use them with my phone without a dongle that's a no-no. I get that "the future is portless" but the future hasn't arrived yet and until then I'm not gonna hand out 800EUR for something I can't use with my headphones with.
- Spivak 9y ago
  But if you're the type of person that has one good pair of headphones then attach the adapter to them all the time and just pretend that the port on your phone is a weird shape. I get that it's not ideal and that adapters are awkward but it seems like it's such a minor inconvenience for your use case. I would expect that audiophiles are used to adapters to go between 2.5mm, 3.5mm, and 1/4" stereo already. What's one more?
  - bauerd 9y ago
    I get where you're coming from but the "What's one more?" idea is what led to this whole donglemania. Dongles are conceived of bridges into a brighter future but no thanks I'll happily live in the past for now.
  - dpkonofa 9y ago
    I just wanted to say that this is a really great point and, inevitably, the answer from people with these objections is always the same - they just prefer what they already have and are comfortable with. It's such a mild inconvenience that they're already ok with in every other scenario but, for some reason, this time it's completely different. It doesn't make sense.

anilshanbhag 9y ago

FYI There is a USB-C to headphone jack cable provided in the box.

JohnTHaller 9y ago
Unfortunately, it's a cheap DAC/amp dongle as, unlike some other phones, the Pixel 2 doesn't output analog audio via USB-C using the phone's built-in DAC/amp. And the Pixel 2 XL has its gain set really low for said dongle, meaning you're going to have difficulty driving lots of headphones.
- Spivak 9y ago
  That's really unfortunate. Do any phones do it right?
  - extr 9y ago
    iPhone 7 dongle audio quality is apparently fantastic, no reason to think iPhone 8 isn't the same. http://www.kenrockwell.com/apple/lightning-adapter-audio-quality.htm http://www.kenrockwell.com/apple/lightning-adapter-audio-qua...
    - cstrat 9y ago
      Oh wow thats a pretty awesome read
    - masklinn 9y ago
      > This tiny adapter houses a microscopic stereo digital-to-analog converter (DAC), a stereo headphone amplifier, a microphone preamplifier and monophonic analog-to-digital converter (ADC) and power converters to run this all. OK what the hell, I thought they were just outputting analog through Lightning from the internal DAC but instead they put a second conversion chain in the adapter? Damn. > You need iOS 10 for the adapter to work on older devices. iOS 9 and before predate the headphone-jack-less iPhones, but if you have iOS 10 it works great on my old iPhone 5S — not that you'd need it to. And it works just fine on older lightning devices too, that's really impressive.

pier25 9y ago

> We've lost so much good tech over the years to reduce costs I don't know what the reason is, but I doubt it's a matter of cost.

colordrops 9y ago
Why do you doubt that?
- pier25 9y ago
  Because even if manufacturers did really save some money (which is debatable) it doesn't make sense to save some cents on an $800 product. For example in terms of parts all phones already have a DA conversor and an amp to be able to send analog audio to the speakers. The actual headphone jack costs close to nothing. It might even be more expensive for Apple to manufacture the lightning to headphone adapter...

exogen 9y ago

> I think Apple's business model is entirely harmful Between Apple and Google, you think APPLE'S business model is the harmful one?! We're talking about (1) actually charging for their products vs. (2) tracking your every move and collecting all the personal information about you they possibly can so they can sell you ads better, right? I'm actually not sure I can even name a tech company with a business model as simple and honest as Apple's.

evv 9y ago
I reluctantly agree. Apple has a bunch of dirty practices that makes me thing twice about buying their products, but their market position does incentivize them to protect my privacy. In contrast, Google is incentivized to provide a thick pipe between the highest bidder and the screen in my hand.
bb88 9y ago
Honestly, I feel like this is an argument for watching HBO vs NBC, say. HBO makes a "honest" product and charges for it, while NBC uses the platform to sell advertising. NBC must therefore be "dishonest" because they're showing you 30 second ads. Despite the fact the business model of serving content for with ads has been a successful (and accepted) business model for decades. Google's privacy policy is open. No one is forcing you to use it, just as no one is forcing you to watch NBC. https://www.google.com/policies/privacy/ https://www.google.com/policies/privacy/
- extr 9y ago
  It is a similar argument, but I think there is an important qualitative difference between TVs and smartphones. One is inherently passive, I interact with it on my own terms. The worst case is they show too many ads and I get pissed and cancel my service. I have some power in the relationship, they need my money month to month. The other is an integral part of my daily life and knows virtually everything about me, who I communicate with, where I go, and is almost mandatory in modern society. I have no control over the software that runs on it, and the organization that does control it already has my money. If I want to exit the relationship, there are maybe one or two serious competitors (depending on if you include non-google android).

extr 9y ago

I really want/need a new phone but the whole headphone situation has left a really bad taste in my mouth. Not usually one to get worked up over the minor details of smartphones but it actually makes me angry thinking of buying one of these phones and then dealing with fucking dongles for the next 3 years. There's a reason "pass me the aux" is a meme and not "pair your phone with my bluetooth speaker, oh wait it's not connecting, let me try disconnecting, do you see it? Yeah it's GHS-9013 I think, okay, I hit the pair button, do you see it now?"

modzu 9y ago
so true. actually the whole phone market is dogshit right now it sure seems like things are getting worse, when all my phone upgrades have been forced: 1. original iphone wipes itself when i connect it to a new computer. ouch. my own itunes account, but somehow not recognized, and zap. went to android after this. 2. first android was the nexus. it had a known hardware bug where the soft buttons were being triggered randomly without being touched. started to drive me insane. 3. enter a unibody aluminum HTC. owned it for 3 years. i missed the sdcard slot but grew to love it anyway because it was durable as hell. it fell down a flight of concrete stairs. then carried on about its day. eventually the camera died on it (all pics started coming out hazy and red). i still see people using htc 7s even now. 4. enter nexus 6p. decent phone. screen was not very bright which was annoying outside but otherwise checks all the boxes. and it still gets the latest updates-- thing runs on oreo! but now its falling apart. the glass at the back broke twice, the sim is loose, gps works half the time, the plastic bottom fell off.. 5. and so here we are today. cannot find another 6p. the pixel looks worse in many ways (fugly and bezels are even bigger while the software is the same). the v2 with no headphone jack?? and all these phones with glass backs that are actually even thicker than their predecessors that are obviously not going to last very long (anyone out there have a screen shatter?? lets double those odds). everyone using their own bloatware and not updating anything... android ones only really available in eurasia... ugh. do not want to crawl back to apple. someone help? blackberry, where are you?? lol
- exhilaration 9y ago
  About 3 weeks ago I sold my Nexus 6p and bought a used Pixel XL (1st gen obviously), and it's amazing. You should definitely consider it!

iamben 9y ago

Absolutely. I'll be totally fine with the lack of headphone jack when wireless headphones last 72+ hours on a single charge, or they charge wirelessly from the bag when I walk into my flat. Until then, wireless headphones are something terrible I have to put up with to make the gym easier, and absolutely not something I want to consider using as I work during the day.

photojosh 9y ago
Really? I found losing the wires (that snagged, pulled them out of my ears, etc) to be a fantastic advantage that far outweighs the inconvenience of having to charge them.
glogla 9y ago
Don't forget they should switch from computer to phone in less than three seconds.

technotony 9y ago

I do hear this as a common complaint, but there's an adapter for this so I'm not sure what the big deal is? http://www.trustedreviews.com/news/google-pixel-2-headphone-adapter-3307893 http://www.trustedreviews.com/news/google-pixel-2-headphone-...

martin1975 9y ago

The headphone jack is one of those things no one should ever remove. I despise having to charge an additional set of hardware, namely bluetooth headsets ... I had the Pixel 2 in my cart thinking I could convince myself of a no 3.5 mm future, and like hell I could so I aborted the checkout. At this rate, if they do not bring it back, I will wait until I can get superb USB-C headsets inexpensively... or most likely, Samsung S9 is going to be my next upgrade. Loved Google's Nexus and even the Pixel 1, but they have gotten complacent, do not listen anymore and actually believe that copying Apple in any way shape or form makes them look better. Can't wait for that Librem phone either. That one sounds better than anything else Google has to offer at least for the HN crowd, if not wider...

modzu 9y ago
never heard of the librem until now, thanks. would be amazing if it happens

skrowl 9y ago

Lack of headphone jack on Pixel XL 2 is what drove me from my Pixel XL into the loving embrace of my new Samsung Note8. There's no excuse to drop headphone jack.

sergers 9y ago

Samsung understands the need, and the headphone jack in note 8 and next s9 is a feature

jherdman 9y ago

> ... but the lack of a headphone jack on the flagship Google phone is really the last straw. Look, this is inevitable. The titans have decided this thing is dead, so it's going to happen. The thing that pissed me off most about the iPhone 7 and convinced me to leave wasn't the lack of a headphone jack, it's that Apple was/is confused about what to do about it. You can't go making USB-C only computers and then have all of your phones using something different. I get that this is shitty, but at least if we decide that USB-C is the way forward we can end the Great Dongle Wars.

modzu 9y ago
right???
Bud 9y ago
Apple is not confused. Lightning is a better and much smaller port for phone use. And there are over a billion Lightning devices out there. There's no compelling reason to switch to anything else, certainly not to USB-C. And no, moving iPhone to USB-C would of course not end the Great Dongle Wars, nor even get rid of a significant chunk of them. Most dongles are necessitated by all kinds of old ports, mostly video, on laptops.

partiallypro 9y ago

I honestly don't care about a headphone jack on a phone, I do care about the wireless charging...which the Pixel 2 lacks. Now that every phone has it (including the iPhone now,) it's baffling that Google felt it necessary to leave it out. I'm at the point where I'd be happy to see Microsoft make their own Android phone, use the Arrow launcher to hook into Windows.

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vikascoder 9y ago

Do the blue tooth headfone proponents ONLY use headfones on phones? How do you use them on laptops and computers with no bluetooth capability? or on Roku remote? or on flights without buying some other crap dongle or adapter? I run out of charge on my gym blutooths soo often, who are these folks who only have to charge their headphones once in 3 months on daily use? Bluetooth could be an addon feature to a headfone if you wanna go cordless but why shut the effin gate on the device side by removing the jack altogether? (hyperventilating now)

jamesrcole 9y ago
That's the nature of change. It's awkward, and never smooth. I'm one of those people who believe that eventually all consumer devices will use wireless headphones. It's not going to happen instantaneously, and the transition will be awkward, but eventually it will be complete and issues like you're talking about will be non-issues. This kind of thing has happened many times before. Did USB stick proponents ONLY use USB sticks? What about computers that only use 3.5 inch floppy disks?
gyaru 9y ago
It's also an incredible hassle to keep pairing if you change the device quite a lot (between pc/phone) in my opinion.

heroprotagonist 9y ago

I ordered one. It came with an adapter. It's not a bad adapter, really. It's no larger than the plugs to make the connections, and connects firmly. What I lament is the inability to charge and use headphones at the same time with this adapter. They have another adapter "coming soon" in their store which will do both. That said, it's been 25 hours since my last charge and I'm still at 71% battery, so it's less impactful than I thought it would be. I'm a little concerned about the reports of screen burn-in I've seen on reddit, but the other rumors about discoloration did not impact my model, so it's just 'wait and see' now for me. Overall, I really like it.

sapphire_tomb 9y ago

The number of "but AirPods are great" comments on this entire thread is hilarious. Not relevant. The article is about Google's phone, not the iPhone. Google have arguably made their BT stack worse in Oreo. Since it got the upgrade at the start of the summer, my Pixel XL v1 no longer plays nicely with my car, and is pretty poor with my BT headphones. Even if I bought the fabled AirPods, they wouldn't use the W1 magic to talk to my phone, so I sincerely doubt they'd fix any problems I have. Luckily, I have the fallback of the 3.5mm jack, and so largely the impact of these BT issues are small for me. But the article mentions that the Pixel 2s are also suffering BT issues, and Google won't even comment on them. If I buy one and find the same issues with it, then I have to rely on the dongle to get music from my phone to my car, and I can't charge it at the same time any more.

LateToBTC 9y ago
The AirPods are Apple's best product since the iPhone IMO.
jamesrcole 9y ago
> The number of "but AirPods are great" comments on this entire thread is hilarious. Not relevant. The article is about Google's phone, not the iPhone. Except that a lot of the complaints are not specific to the Google phone. They're about removing the headphone jack, and what people claim are inherent problems with doing so. If AirPods can be used to counter such claims then they're definitely relevant.

mtgx 9y ago

I like how they used the excuse that they did it to reduce bezels. Does this look like it has small bezels to anyone? https://cdn2.gsmarena.com/vv/pics/google/google-pixel-2-1.jpg https://cdn2.gsmarena.com/vv/pics/google/google-pixel-2-1.jp... Getting a little tired of Google's obvious lies (still bitter about their lie about OIS in the past, and now the dual-camera, too).

chewyland 9y ago

Yikes, I thought the anti-headphone jack movement would have died by now. Get rid of it, all of it, along with plastic media drives and plastic media, game cartridges, magnetic hard drives, SIM cards, full size USB ports...all this crap, go away already, please.

reacweb 9y ago

I love headphone jack and I do not like very much bluetooth (except Hands-Free Car Kit). But I also watch many TV series where the characters are always using tiny earbuds. People want to be as cool as their idols. The first generation of bluetooth headset was cumbersome. With the Apple touch and some technical improvements, this can be a success.

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Shorel 9y ago

The headphone jack is not being removed for cellphone business reasons, it is being removed for music industry reasons. It is a consumer hostile move, no matter the quality of the wireless earbuds. I speculate they probably negotiated this as part of the iTunes library access some years ago.