The wireless industry is currently rolling out the latest and greatest at Mobile World Congress. Nineteen phones were announced around this industry event including the latest from Samsung, Sony, Nokia and LG. These are the phones that the manufacturers will push on consumers in 2018. The 3.5mm jack is available on the vast majority of the phones though the 3.5mm jack should only be considered standard equipment on mid-to-entry level phones — it’s disappearing from flagship phones at a rapid pace.
Out of the 19 phones announced at MWC 2018, 17 sport the classic 3.5mm headphone jack. It’s missing from these three models: Sony XZ2, Sony XZ2 Compact and the Nokia 8 Sirocco. Interestingly, these three phone’s predecessors included a 3.5mm jack.
Out of the flagship phones announced at MWC 2018, half include the 3.5mm headphone including the Samsung Galaxy S9 and LG V30s ThinQ. Samsung even went as far as making a joke about the port during the S9’s unveiling saying the phone is innovative because the 3.5mm port means Bluetooth is not required.
The 3.5mm jack has slowly disappeared from phones since 2016. In April of that year, LeEco announced a series of phones that dropped the jack in favor of audio over USB-C. Slowly other manufacturers followed the same trend including Apple in September 2016 with the iPhone 7. Since then several flagship phones have ditched the jack including the Google Pixel line, Moto Z, HTC U11 and Xiaomi Mi 6 line.
The line is becoming more defined between phones that have a headphone jack and phones that do not.
Most of the phones announced at MWC 2018 are low-cost, mid-range phones and all of those have a 3.5mm jack. Several flagship phones were announced at the show,...