OnePlus 5T Will Keep the 3.5mm Headphone Jack

BY Evan Selleck

Published 2 Nov 2017

Companies continue to drop the 3.5mm headphone jack on a semi-regular basis, but there are some that refuse to give up on it just yet.

OnePlus CEO Pete Lau recently took to the company’s official forums to talk about the upcoming OnePlus 5T — without actually announcing the smartphone just yet. In the blog post, it’s all about the 3.5mm headphone jack, and, most importantly, that the company’s upcoming flagship smartphone will be keeping the port. Lau has some reasons for this, and he shares those with OnePlus forum goers.

The first reason Lau gives is audio quality, which he says that 70% of OnePlus customers said is a priority for them. As a result, the headphone jack will be kept around because it offers the best possible way to get the best listening experience, at least on the hardware side. With the jack, customers can plug in a wide array of headphones, including high-profile headphones that focus on audio quality for audiophiles.

The other reason Lau says the headphone jack will be sticking around is due to a lack of customer experience improvements. Here’s how Lau explains it:

“Second, user freedom. Nearly 80% of our users use in-jack headphones. At one point, we thought about using another USB-C port to replace the 3.5 mm audio port. The advantage to USB-C is that it would have let us further slim down our flagships. However, the question we asked ourselves was whether replacing the 3.5 mm jack with a USB-C port would bring a noticeably improved experience for our users. In other words, is it worth the trade off? And our assessment was no, this design decision was not worth taking away our users’ freedom to use their favorite earphones and accessories.”

Lau does say that wireless audio “has a lot of potential,” and notes that if customers prefer a wireless experience the OnePlus devices have the ability to support that experience as well. But, based on Lau’s post, it sounds like OnePlus will be one company that’s keeping the headphone jack around for a little longer.

What do you think of Lau’s decision?

[via OnePlus Forums]