Samsung had one other thrilling lineup of flagship smartphones to point out off at this week’s Galaxy Unpacked occasion. Though there weren’t too many surprises, this 12 months’s Galaxy S25 fashions take the lineup to new heights with a extra refined aesthetic for the Galaxy S25 Extremely and extra energy and longer battery life throughout the board, because of Qualcomm’s newest Snapdragon 8 Elite chip.
Nonetheless, Samsung leaves us with one nagging query when it introduces every year’s newest Galaxy S sequence fashions: will this 12 months mark the return for the headphone jack? Bluetooth headphones could also be all the fad these years, and Samsung’s Galaxy Buds 3 Professional make an ideal companion for the corporate’s high-end smartphones, however some of us nonetheless understandably want wired connections for better reliability and better sound high quality.
The Galaxy S25 doesn’t have a headphone jack
After mocking Apple for eradicating the headphone jack on the 2016 iPhone 7, Samsung finally determined this wasn’t such a foul concept. In spite of everything, the headphone jack takes up house in a smartphone that may be put to raised use, and by the point the Galaxy S10 and Observe 10 sequence got here alongside in 2019, Samsung had adopted in Apple’s footsteps — a minimum of for its flagship telephones.
The wallet-friendly Galaxy A1x sequence held out for for much longer, presumably as a result of Samsung acknowledged that people on tight budgets have been the least prone to splurge on wi-fi headphones. Nevertheless, after the inexpensive Galaxy Buds FE got here alongside in late 2023, we weren’t all that stunned when the Galaxy A16 joined the jack-less membership.
That call makes it a secure guess that the headphone jack is gone for good. Over the previous few years, a 3.5mm audio port has change into an indicator of lower-end telephones, which has put it effectively beneath the pedigree of the Galaxy S25 sequence.
Options to the lacking headphone jack
That’s to not say that wired listeners are totally unnoticed. The three.5mm headphone jack is considered one of these items that’s change into very “final decade,” and Samsung and different Android makers have had an ace up their collective sleeves for years within the type of USB-C.
Whereas Apple spent years forcing audiophiles to depend on its proprietary Lightning port to get wired audio, Samsung started its swap to USB-C with the Galaxy Observe 7 in 2016 — the identical 12 months the iPhone 7 dropped the headphone jack. By 2017, all of its flagship smartphones had made the swap, and by the early 2020s, it wasn’t arduous to search out wired USB-C fashions amongst even probably the most inexpensive headphones. USB-C to three.5mm adapters have been additionally plentiful, permitting of us to make use of their most popular conventional headphones.
USB-C audio has a definite benefit over conventional 3.5mm headphone jacks as a result of it gives an successfully lossless digital audio path. Conventional wired headphones require an analog sign, which suggests your digital music needs to be transformed to analog contained in the telephone. Even within the days when 3.5mm headphone jacks have been ample, many music followers with extra discerning eardrums selected to produce their very own digital-to-analog converters (DACs) that might ship far greater high quality than the DAC constructed into most smartphones.
DACs are nonetheless the popular gear for audiophiles with premium cans, however most folk can get by with USB-C dongles that price as little as $10. Most of these received’t do significantly better than the DAC that was as soon as constructed into Samsung’s 3.5mm jacks, however that’s not going to matter a lot until you’re utilizing costly wired earbuds or headphones and listening to a high-fidelity lossless audio supply comparable to Apple Music, Amazon Music, or Tidal. Different in style streaming companies like Spotify cap out at 256–320kbps, effectively beneath the constancy that an costly DAC can ship.
This all assumes that you simply’re actually offered on the concept of wired audio. If high quality is your main concern, chances are you’ll be pleasantly stunned by how effectively Samsung’s Galaxy Buds play with Samsung’s flagship telephones. The corporate’s proprietary Samsung Seamless Codec (SSC) can ship near-lossless bitrates over Bluetooth, simply giving all however the priciest DAC and wired headphone combos a run for his or her cash.
You don’t need to go along with Samsung’s buds, although. In the event you lean extra towards on-ear or over-ear fashions, loads of wonderful wi-fi headphones have comparable hi-res codecs. Solely Samsung’s earbuds help SSC, however the Galaxy S25 lineup can even ship audio utilizing Sony’s LDAC, the important thing codec within the incredible Sony WH-1000XM5 headphones.
Whereas none of those will rival a superb set of wired headphones with a high-end DAC, the perfect can simply surpass what you’d get from a standard 3.5mm headphone jack or a fundamental $10 USB-C dongle. Nonetheless, wired headphones are arduous to beat if all you’re in search of is one thing low cost and cheerful.
