Browsing through the news today, I stumbled upon the latest leaks for the rumored HTC Bolt, a large mid-range device that resembles the Taiwanese company’s flagship, the HTC 10, quite a bit. I feel that HTC is tackling a part of the market that could use a little TLC. Between Google going premium with Pixel and leaving Nexus behind, as well as Lenovo apparently going the route of planned obsolesce with the once-adored Moto series, the mid-range market for Android, while still saturated, is missing a couple of its best front-runners.
With HTC stepping in with the Bolt, there’s potential for the company to fill in that gap. As long as the specs are decent and the price is right (which is questionable, given how HTC initially priced the HTC 10), HTC has a solid chance of gaining a following with the Bolt.
According to the reports, a decent amount of specs have already been leaked: a 5.5-inch 1080p display, 3GB of RAM, 64GB of internal storage, 18-megapixel rear-facing camera with f/2.0 and 4K video, and an 8-megapixel front-facing camera. The phone is also said to charge via USB Type-C, which is expected these days; however, the Type-C port will apparently serve two functions: charging and serving as the new headphone jack. According to leaks, the HTC Bolt appears to have no 3.5mm headphone jack.
Having no 3.5mm headphone jack isn’t the end of the world, as we’ve seen. It’s not like you can’t plug in headphones if you really wanted to, and there are still adapters out there if you want to keep using a 3.5mm headphone jack. Still, the move is still considered extremely inconvenient. According to companies who chose to nix the 3.5mm headphone jack, it was done in the name of “superior sound” due to digital connection. While this may be true to some degree, the increased quality is marginal at best, and it’s certainly not advanced enough for most people to feel that they’re getting a good deal out of this “ripping off the bandage” method of moving towards the future.
Apple removing the 3.5mm headphone jack in the iPhone 7 is not only the most recent, but also the most controversial example of this issue, was put on the back-burner when Samsung’s Note 7 fiasco began (and persisted). I don’t think Apple could have introduced this removal at a better time, truly; but now that the Note 7 news and jokes are starting to die down, I can’t help but focus on this trivial aspect of the industry again, which appears to be spreading to other manufacturers quite rapidly now that Apple has made the move.
Really, my problem isn’t that the 3.5mm headphone jack is gone. My problem is that they just take it away and don’t offer a true replacement. You can use the USB-C or Lightning port to listen to music, and you can use an adapter to use your 3.5mm headphone jack, but that still takes away the ability to natively charge the phone while listening to music at the same time. It takes away convenience. Third party options have been introduced to alleviate this issue, but it shouldn’t be an issue for third party companies to fix in the first place. At the very least, if Type-C or Lightning ports are that important for high-quality audio, add a second Type-C or Lightning port.
But back to the Bolt. The HTC Bolt seems like a decent mid-range device. The removal of the headphone jack is disappointing, and probably even more disappointing is that HTC’s iconic BoomSound technology is apparently a feature, it’s only a feature through… the headphones. For external audio, the Bolt allegedly features a single stereo speaker on the bottom edge of the device.
I think the best hope for the Bolt to make it big as a mid-range device is to have an extremely tempting price tag. We still don’t know when the Bolt will debut, but it’s expected to be available worldwide when it does.
As for the headphone jack issue, I feel that it's only going to happen more frequently now. My only hope is that manufacturers at least add a second port at some point.
Readers, what are your thoughts on the growing trend of removing the 3.5mm headphone jack? Do you think this move is key for future audio improvements, or do you think it’s a trend that shouldn’t be trending? Let us know your thoughts in the comments below!
