Two years after the Fairphone 4 and following the release of some audio products like the Fairbuds XL, the Dutch company is back with a new repairable phone: the Fairphone 5. It looks and feels a lot like the Fairphone 4, but it adds choice upgrades across the board, making it the most modular and also most modern-looking repairable phone from the company yet.
The design is largely unchanged compared to the Fairphone 4, but the improvements that the company did make go a long way: The teardrop notch and the LCD screen is finally gone, with an ordinary punch-hole selfie and an OLED taking its place. Otherwise, you’re looking at an aluminum frame, a triangular camera array, and a removable back cover. Here, the company brought back its signature translucent back cover next to two black and blue variants. The dimensions and weight has been reduced ever-so-slightly compared to the predecessor.
3.5mm jack takes way to much space, and it requires a dedicated DAC circuit. And there is not enough users to warrant it anymore, especially considering the existance of usbc to 3.5mm adapters which do exactly the same without wasting internal space.
3.5mm is bound to disappear everywhere but dedicated audiophile hardware.
I’m a vinyl collector and audiophile myself, I’d love to see analogical staying relevant, but let’s be realistic, smartphones are not dedicated enough to music to waste space for a feature that only 10% of the user will ever need.
If you really need a portable device with a 3.5mm jack, go buy a Walkman. Sony still make new ones, and they all have 3.5mm jacks.
I love how the solution for a green phone is to buy a whole other device for music.
Less e waste, surely.
And looking at the internals of the Fairphone 5, there is plenty of god damn space.