[maep]

Too bad they are chasing all the bad trends (notch, no audio jack, camera bump, flatness over battery size, growing size). That pretty much kills it for me.

Especially the audio jack is a hard sell when their mission statement is sustainability.

[antisol]

> the audio jack is a hard sell when their mission statement is sustainability.

Yeah, especially when they have a blurb on their preorder page about how they don't include earphones with the phone "for sustainability, so that you can re-use the ones you already have".

That's going to be difficult if I can't plug them in, no? I think your marketing team just accidentally that entire premise.

[Vinnl]

The audio jack sounds weird in terms of sustainability, but supposedly it's to make the phone itself last longer:

> A notable downside compared to previous Fairphones is that the Fairphone 4 no longer includes a 3.5mm headphone jack, a choice that feels at odds with the company’s otherwise customer-first approach. Fairphone tells me it made this decision in order to be able to offer an official IP rating for dust and water resistance, which was missing from the company’s previous phones. It’s only IP54, which means it’s protected from light splashes rather than full submersion, but that’s impressive in light of its removable rear cover and modular design.

https://www.theverge.com/2021/9/30/22700014/fairphone-4-rele...

[i21QMgplhRJs2OL]

That would be a good explanation if it weren't for the fact that there have been phones with IP ratings and headphone jacks.

[Vinnl]

The difference of course being that those don't sport the Fairphone's modularity.

[meragrin_]

Motorola can include a 3.5mm jack in the moto x4 and get an IP68 rating. Why does Fairphone have to eliminate it to get an IP54 rating? Clearly, having a 3.5mm jack is not an impediment to getting an IP54 rating.

[oyashirochama]

The S5 had a removable battery and backplate with headphone jack exposed, and had a IP67 rating. It's easy enough to do just no one wants to put in the engineering work.

[ricardobeat]

Is wireless audio inherently less sustainable?

[squarefoot]

It's worse in every possible way: worse quality (improved recently, still worse), expensive, includes non replaceable batteries, therefore requires charging and increases pollution when the user is forced to ditch the phones just because the batteries died.

[ricardobeat]

My first wireless headphones are 5 years old and not showing any noticeable battery degradation. If they die, they’ll be sent in for recycling. Assuming the battery gets recycled, I don’t see a significant difference other than the lack of copper wiring.

[up6w6]

If you consider that earphone in general are not that much durable and a wireless earphone has more environmental impact to be produced (battery, bluetooth components) while the old audio jack is simpler and still a standard.

[antisol]

yes. It includes batteries.

[jazzyjackson]

most bluetooth headphones i’ve seen will be useless in a few years once the non-replaceable battery wears out

wired headphones can literally last decades

[fsflover]

Consider Librem 5 if you want to go against all those trends.