OnePlus CEO Carl Pei in a recent interview has confirmed that its upcoming OnePlus 6T phone will not carry a headphone jack for your wired audio gear. The 6T, which wasn’t expected by many to launch this year was teased a few weeks back, with a possible launch date of 17 October strongly suggested.
OnePlus will be the latest mobile brand to ditch the headphone jack, a trend which was first adopted by Apple with the iPhone 7 series. Other brands like Huawei started doing it with its P20 Pro and even Google with the Pixel 2 series last year.
The company claims that removing the headphone jack will help the 6T with improved battery life and possibly add IP68 protection for better resistance to dust and water. To prove its point, it has launched OnePlus Bullets wired headphone with a Type C port.
This will be the third year in succession, after the OnePlus 3T and 5T, where OnePlus is likely to disappoint its existing set of users with another T version device.
It’s interesting that OnePlus has come to this decision, especially when a Twitter poll on this subject clearly showed that people still like having audio jacks on phones. Carl also believes that adding a bigger battery is more important, even if it means sacrificing the headphone jack.
While it’s easy to understand the decision, but there are devices like the Samsung Galaxy Note 9 that can pack a big battery without getting rid of the audio port.
It’s also worth pointing out that before the launch of the OnePlus 6 this year, many people had asked the company to retain this feature, which it did. So, what has forced the company to change its thinking now?
The phone will get an in-display fingerprint reader, which was first made available on Vivo phones like the X21, Vivo Nex and the recently launched V11 Pro.
Looking at how the OnePlus 6T is shaping up, it’s quite likely that the phone’s sticker price will easily cross the Rs 40,000 bracket, unless the brand is happy with its current revenue model.
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