Title. What is the most ethical smartphone to buy instead of Fairphone that DOES have a 3.5mm headphone jack? By ethical I mean ticking as many boxes as possible: fair trade, environmentally sustainable (ideally using recycled materials), vegan (no animal products), etc etc. I also might get it second hand, but I still want the phone itself to be from an ethical company. Thanks
There’s a glaring detail you’re skipping. Its 2025 and everything has moved to USB DAC’s. They’re significantly higher quality ports than built in low grade bottom of the barrel headphone jack. Switch to a USB DAC and get the fairphone.
Fairphone simply is the most ethical phone, I don’t know of an alternative with a large enough market share to be able to make the same commitments.
Please dont hate on me, I think my question is reasonable. And I still support Fairphone, and I dont want to debate over why they dont have a headphone jack. And please dont try to convince me to use a phone without a headphone jack, have done so for years and it’s terrible for my purposes and leads to many many adapters breaking.
No hate friend. The USB-C version of headphones is just a better hardware design. The 3.5mm connector mixed with modern headphone wire is just a bad mix. Those two have polar opposite soldering constraints. I didn’t want to switch either. I have taken apart and repaired both.
Also after taking apart several old phones, the 3.5mm jack is a major moisture ingress point.
Agreed. Having seen enough teardowns, I think the 3.5 TRS connector has too many problems integrated into a smartphone to be worth it given the modern USB-C dongle replacements. In-line TRS jack on a USB-C cable is way better and it’ll sound better too. It’s €10 from Fairphone.
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Hello phone community! Any suggestions for a phone like, but not yours? Kay bye
I think their assumption that the Fairphone community would know best what alternatives are on the market pretty reasonable.
Also, I have a Fairphone 3 that fits all of OPs criteria AND all of this community’s zealots.
And I’m pretty sure that the Fairphone company would see it as an absolute win if many more companies like them existed to improve the whole supply chain.
Volla and Shift might be possible contenders. Especially Shift is basically trying to do the same as Fairphone. Their new flagship doesn’t have 3.5 mm audio but maybe one of their older models does.
Hey thanks, I really appreciate this info. I actually forgot that earlier Fairphones used to have the headphone jack. As far as I can tell, Fairphone 3 and 3+ were the last ones to have it, and the 3+ appears to be an upgrade from the Fairphone 3, so I guess if I wanted the most modern one possible I would go for 3+… i am a little confused and worried about operating system compatibility though, e.g. it says it comes with Android 9 and can be upgraded to Android 13, but can reach Android 15 with lineageOS (I don’t know how to do that or if I need to get a certain model pre-installed with it), and the latest Android version is 16 so I guess 15 would be ok, would last me a while at least before apps start to become incompatible… Also the difficulty remains of actually obtaining the phone, especially if it needed to be a particular kind.
I will also look into Volla and Shift, hopefully I can find something that works, and if not, well I’ve been told a lot that the Sony Xperia phones are one of the only ones still using a headphone jack consistently, so I might just have to get a secondhand version of that one and if anyone judges me for it I’ll have to ask them to take my word for it that I didn’t buy it new 😅
@SeahorseTreble @bjoern_tantau Wired usb-c headphones just aren’t going to cut it for you?
Tbh I don’t really understand how anyone comfortably uses wired USB C headphones since it means you can’t charge the phone or have it plugged in to do anything at the same time. If that’s the route we’re going, I might advocate for 2 USB C ports. But that’s not the main reason for me, and I understand my situation/use case doesn’t apply to most people. In fact I still have to deal with that problem anyway, on top of others.
I require a specific kind of headphones that don’t touch my ears due to a medical condition combined with massive ears. It’s very painful and harmful for me otherwise. It’s almost impossible to find headphones like that, in fact I haven’t been able to, but the only ones I’ve been able to find that are big enough to be comfortable enough and not cause major issues are all expensive/professional studio wired over ear headphones. If I find one that is either Bluetooth (wireless) or USB C that works for my ears, I would get it.
So my solution has been to use firstly USB C to 3.5mm adapters, which break constantly and surely create more waste than I personally would with a headphone jack part of a phone, and never work well and keep disconnecting, and also don’t let me charge etc at the same time. For that problem I tried ones that split a USB C port into another USB C port + a 3.5mm jack, but they worked even worse. Ultimately what I settled on are 3.5mm Bluetooth dongles/adapters that work a little better and don’t break as much (though their charging cables do), and still let me charge the phone. However it still creates extra waste (and uses extra energy to charge) and doesn’t work well and isn’t ideal, and I’d always rather be able to just plug it into the phone directly.
I’m also somewhat into audio editing and music production, and for that purpose I believe that most professional studio headphones and industry standards are still using 3.5mm, but I could be wrong about that and I know it is shifting rapidly toward wireless or USB C, and I also haven’t been really prioritizing sound quality since my main priority is comfort/usability.
