I'm still using a Samsung S10e and its starting to show signs of wear, but I honestly don't like any of the replacements I've seen that are under $1000 and I don't want to spend that much on a phone. And unfortunately it looks hard to find older versions too.
I tried looking into old version of the Asus ROG or Red Magic phones that still performed better than my S10e but even those were still so pricy.
My phone doesn't have a headphone jack but has an FM radio. It took me ages to 1) realise I needed a pass through cable without a DAC and 2) find a pass-through cable without a DAC.
I want to throw Unihertz a shout-out. I only have the JellyPhone for its novelty, but as far as devices go, it does all the things an Android phone should, even with the silly form factor. It being stock Android is a big plus as well
I can’t necessarily speak for their other phones, but if the build quality is the same, I really like what they’re doing.
Yeah.. a headphone jack is nice for charging and listening at the same time, but I'll say it, the 10$ usb-c apple dongle does the job just fine and covers 99% of use cases. Plus it can also be used on devices with shitty DACs because the dongle is essentially one and it's pretty good as well
I stopped caring about the headphone jack when every pair I used, the wire eventually wore out. Having to buy more every couple months was getting old. I'd rather recharge my Airpods every 4 or 5 hours for 45 mins than continue buying wired headphones repeatedly for enternity.
But that's just my personal experience. I use headphones at work, so obviously with all the constant moving around, it was hard on the wires. I don't wish for the jack to be removed but I will never use it again for my purposes.
I'm in the US so no Sony option but I had to stay away from Asus with their terrible update support/longevity and bootloader unlocking support. Samsung is similar on the latter portion, Motorola is bad on the former but may have to revisit their stance on bootloader unlocking for ROM support.
The redmi note (pro) series also still has the jack, though the newer models are a bit lackluster. Was considering upgrading from my redmi note 10 pro to 13, but after comparing the specs felt like it wasn't worth it at all.
Slight ramble / off topic, I've owned a few Sony phones over the years, granted this was some time ago bit they were my go to here in the UK before they decided to add too many digets too the price, my last one was an Xperia 10 (I think, Sony's naming convention and all that) great phone at the time, headphone jack and microSD cards, nice toolless SIM tray (which the still do I believe), spec sheet was decent etc.
But one thing I did not manage to notice while doing my research was the performance was god aweful in Sony's android implementation at the time (at least on the 10) the underlying OS was so poorly optimised it kind of fell inside its own arse whenever doing anything more taxing than watching a video, everything surrounding it was perfect but the software.
Great phone held back by poor software, many years late I flashed Linage and rocked it as a dedicated music player, with my wired headphones and 128GB microSD and it was night and day.
On an unrlated note, I still kind of miss old Sony design language in their OS that kind of mirrored XMB in some ways especially the UI sounds and icons, but anyway the battery was going on it years ago and I lost it during a move, I still miss that phone.
I've said it before and I'll say it again: for phones a headphone jack has been fucking stupid for almost a decade now
Blame the headphone manufacturers that refuse to release products with a connector that fits the vast majority of devices now, forcing adapter use, not the devices bailing on an outdated connector
Every whiny person on this topic is fucking hilarious, you're all fucking stupid as fuck