The OnePlus 6T won’t have a headphone jack

While Apple wasn’t the first company to drop the 3.5mm headphone jack from its smartphone lineup, it certainly made the move “popular” for smartphone manufacturers. And now it looks like OnePlus is jumping on the bandwagon, too.

TechRadar sat down with OnePlus co-founder Carl Pei to discuss why the company is ditching the headphone jack from its “next smartphone”. Pei doesn’t actually give that phone a name, but with as many rumors as we’ve heard up to this point, it seems like a safe assumption that the OnePlus 6T is indeed that next handset, which mens it will be the first for the company to drop the headphone jack.

As Pei puts it, it’s “the right time” to remove the jack, and he’s got figures to back it up. According to the company co-founder, more than 50 percent of OnePlus owners are already using wireless headphones — and that was before the company launched its Bullets Wireless headphones. Moving forward, Pei expects that number to grow.

Pei also says that the user experience is important, and that not every phone has to have “every component”. He believes it’s the right time to remove the jack, and there’s an immediate benefit for the decision too: better battery life.

“By removing the jack we’ve freed up more space, allowing us to put more new technology into the product. One of the big things is something our users have asked us for, improved battery life.“

Pei added that there will be “new technology” in the OnePlus 6T, which is facilitated by the removal of the headphone jack. What that is, exactly, remains unknown, probably because there needs to be some surprise for the inevitable OnePlus 6T event that will probably happen sometime in October.

So, Pei isn’t saying the decision is courageous, but at least he’s got some numbers to help back up the company’s plan to ditch the headphone jack. The question is, will OnePlus still receive the same backlash as the other companies that have done this?

Where do you stand on the headphone jack these days?

source: androidandme