I'm not an audiophile, so wireless headphones and streamed music is more than good enough for me - but as someone who has a headphone jack and would be more than willing to use it, it's not exactly been a bed of roses after a couple of years of use.
Am sure a manufacturer with better QA than OnePlus might be better, or if I'd have wrapped my phone in bubble-wrap every time I place it in a pocket it wouldn't have got stuff in there. But that's the anecdata from someone with one.
I have an iPhone 7, whenever I take it out of it's case it just seems to fly straight out of my hand.
Most smartphones remind me more of fine jewelery, or something that was intended to sit in a locked display case.
I remember cycling down the hill and having my Nokia 6610 fall out of my pocket, front n back case n battery flying every which way down the road and thinking nothing of it.
Times have changed.
>Am sure a manufacturer with better QA than OnePlus
Funny, IMO my 7T is by far the best quality phone I have tried and that includes Apple and Google phones.
Add to that the fact that fully cordless earbuds are beyond ergonomic failure. At least corded can hang around your neck. Bud's one has to pop in and out, hold, put in your pocket. The idea of continuing conversations even if they have passthrough is very rude
I recently got Bluetooth headphones for exactly the same reason as you, but continue to use them wired with my computer because it's just better. Bluetooth works almost all the time, but not 100%.
Personally I can't agree. I've found they are a nightmare. Walk into a coffee shop, take them out to order. Have to take each out, at significant risk of dropping or fumbling. Back in pocket or held in hand. You then have a bag to carry, them. Wired Bluetooth would just drape easily around the neck whilst one conducts business.
I know few airpod users who have not lost one or dropped one on the street
> have lost wired bluetooth earbuds in the past, but never lost an AirPod since I've gotten my first pair in early 2017.
There is sadly little value in this statement
Comparing them negatively ergonomically to cabled earbuds is of course crazy :)
Why?
I know it's an extremely expensive solution, and it's super shitty that Apple is basically forcing you to buy them, but now that I have them I love them.
That’s an exaggeration. As mentioned in another comment Apple’s lightning to jack adapter is cheap, well done and enables all your high end headphones to be used with the iPhone. Just leave them attached to your headphones if you keep forgetting to bring them with you.
Plus, there are countless non-Apple wireless headphones options if you really don’t like adapters. Airpods are by no means mandatory.
I feel gross when I call them 'magical' but they sortof really are
It feels to me like people just want to complain to complain.
So far I've been dealing with being on the go with the PowerBeats Pro - it's good enough for my purposes (light, good battery life, sound is good enough, somewhat compact), although I have it mainly because the AirPod Pros were not out then.
If you haven't gotten into high-end audio already, I'm guessing you're not the type who "listens to equipment" as opposed to listening to music. So long as you're paying more attention to the music than the minute differences between exponentially more expensive pairs of headphones (or DACs and amps), you're probably not going to have the problem you're afraid of. I can rarely hear the difference between my midrange Sony wireless headphones and my friend's super fancy open-back headphones when there's an equalizer profile applied to each to make them sound similar.
Then there's the idiotic problem that Apple created but never even solved: blocking the phone's sole port with a "headphone dongle," which prevents you from CHARGING the phone. So now if you want to listen to music while navigating (which kills the battery quickly), you're screwed.
I ended up buying a few of the Lightning-to-30-pin-iPod adapters, which you can then plug a USB+audio cable into. Yes, the ancient 30-pin iPod connector has line audio out, and the cool thing is that it's a true line out; the volume control has no effect on it, so you only have one volume control to dick around with (the one on the amp).
That 5% of the time, while not often, is enough to remind me why I held onto my iPhone 6S until it finally died on me. As an iPhone user, I truly wish Apple would offer an iPhone 12 with a headphone jack, because I would absolutely buy it (two of the best pair of headphones I own are corded and it's a shame I can't just plug them into my iPhone when I please...)
Adding insult to injury, music objectively sucks with bluetooth. A good DAC takes space and power. Multiple drivers take space and power. Bluetooth modems require space and power and generate interference simply because they are modems. When you try to shove all of that inside a tiny earphone, there are going to be massive tradeoffs.