The Moondrop MIAD 01 is one of the most distinctive Android devices of 2024 thus far. It has a 4.4mm headphone jack to go with the more conventional 3.5mm type. Furthermore, it seems it might be as appealing to teardown enthusiasts as well as audiophiles, and may, therefore, also be easier to repair than most modern smartphones.
They take up quite a lot of space (for a phone) that could otherwise be used for a larger battery. I’ll happily take a few hundred mAh of battery life over a headphone jack. I find bluetooth headphones much more comfortable to use anyway. But I understand that some people prefer wired headphones.
But that space usually isn’t. No company would make a battery with a tiny little protrusion where the headphone jack once was. That’d cost a lot more, and make it a lot more fragile.
They’d be more likely to leave it empty, or fit something else in that space, like a third speaker.
By removing the headphone jack and saving space, everything can be laid out in a way that creates more room for a larger battery, many manufacturers do this.
Space seems overblown when Samsung ultras fit in an entire spen that takes up way more space, and most phones do not have a stylus that can be stored internally. So I don’t buy the excuse of space. Always has seemed like more a company excuse to sell accessories.