When Apple started removing the headphone jack on the iPhone 7, people were really furious. What’s worse is, a lot of Android makers did the same on some of their releases.
Left with no choice, consumers adapted by switching to wireless earphones — which have saturated the market over the past few years. A lot of them actually learned to love it as they are more convenient and easier to use than the old wired pair of cans.
Still, we’re not surprised to learn that a lot of users still prefer headphone jacks. In an interview, an ASUS executive shared some of their user insights from their previous flagship, the Zenfone 9.
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According to ASUS, 36.5% of Zenfone users still use the headphone jack at least once per month, and 8.3% use the port at least once every day. While that’s a substantial number, ultimately, it’s still the minority. However, it’s a clear identification that there’s still a circle of people that uses wired earphones, and brands like ASUS and Sony are banking on them.
Other than removing headphone jacks, brands are also trying to innovate the industry by introducing ultra-fast chargers. Hence, we’re now seeing chargers breaching the 100W mark.
While having ultra-fast speeds created a lot of hype, it appears like brands are scaling back. As you can see, HONOR’s latest flagship now only has a 66W adapter, down from the 100W of last year’s.
Apparently, this is due to consumers realizing that they would rather have their battery health last longer than have blazing charging speeds.
The data ASUS presented reflects this as 25% of Zenfone users have apparently enabled Steady Charging, which slows the charging speed to reduce heat and improve battery longevity. This is why the Zenfone series are still at 30W and the ROG Phones are stuck at 65W.
With that, we expect the upcoming Zenfone 10 series will have a headphone jack and relatively slow charging.
Source: Android Authority