Samsung's new Galaxy Note 10 is the company's first smartphone without a headphone jack, and Samsung didn't include a headphone dongle â here's why
The future of the headphone jack on smartphones is pretty certain at this stage: it's all but over.
Samsung, one of the last smartphone headphone jack holdouts, ditched the headphone jack for the new Galaxy Note 10, and that likely means the Galaxy S11 next year won't have a headphone jack, either.
Somewhat surprisingly, Samsung isn't easing its customers into the headphone jack-less world. The company isn't including headphone jack dongles with the Galaxy Note 10, forcing you instead to use a pair of wireless headphones, use the included USB-C AKG earphones, or buy a $15 dongle separately.
Speaking with Business Insider, Samsung said it would rather include earphones the company values at a $100 instead of a $15 dongle to connect your existing wired headphones.
That's a tough sell, but a sell nonetheless.
I tried the AKG earphones that came with the Note 10, and they're actually pretty good. If you don't already have a pair of earphones, they'd work perfectly fine as a daily pair. They have an in-ear design that's more likely to fit a wider range of ears than earbuds like Apple's EarPods that are included with iPhones. And as in-ear earphones, they help block out a little noise, too. When I forgot my wireless headphones one day, the AKG earphones that came with the Note 10 were a welcome and perfectly good backup.
But whether Note 10 users with their own wired headphones will accept the AKG earphones is another matter.
