Ever since the iPhone 7 came out, Samsung has made a point of its smartphone launches to reconfirm that it’s not planning on removing the headphone jack from its smartphones, even though several other companies followed in Apple’s footsteps and removed the port from their phones. But Samsung finally “killed” the port, and we all missed it. That’s because all Galaxy S10 phones still have audio jacks, something we’ve known for weeks thanks to an impressive number of leaks. But the Galaxy Fold, Samsung’s first foldable handset, doesn’t have one.
Before the Unpacked event on Wednesday, we received mixed signals about the foldable handset. Some leakers said the phone won’t be unveiled at the show, while others claimed the contrary. I did expect Samsung to at least drop the name of the handset and offer us more teasers, so I was surprised to see Samsung start the press event with the Galaxy Fold. Not only did we learn the name of the phone and got to see its final design, but Samsung revealed all the specs, the phone’s price, and launch date.
With all the Galaxy Fold action, it was very easy to miss a major detail about the handset: it doesn’t have a 3.5mm headphone jack on the bottom, where you’ll find lots of antenna bands, a speaker, and the USB-C port. Samsung did say, however, that the Galaxy Fold will be sold with free Galaxy Buds, the wireless headphones that were also unveiled at the event, and which also come free of charge with Galaxy S10 preorders.
Considering how large the phone is, one could easily argue that Samsung could have equipped it with a headphone jack, But then again, headphones jacks do tend to take up plenty of space, and the Galaxy Fold can’t be too thick.
Samsung was rumored for a few years to discontinue the audio port, with some rumors claiming that this year’s flagships might be the first to ship without a 3.5mm jack. The Galaxy Fold turned out to be the phone in question. Does that mean that future Galaxy S and Note models will not have an audio port? We’ll have to wait and see.
But Samsung made it pretty clear the other day that the future of the mobile business starts with the Galaxy Fold, at least for Samsung. If foldable phones are going to catch on in the following years, don’t expect any of them to feature audio jacks, Samsung’s devices included.
