OnePlus will ditch the headphone jack on its next phone

Welp. After making a show of keeping the headphone jack around for a few extra generations, OnePlus is finally succumbing to the inevitable. The company tweeted an image of USB-C headphones and confirmed that the port will bite the dust on the upcoming 6T.

“You’ve got to make decisions that optimize the user experience, and understand that at times things that provide user value can also add friction,” co-founder Carl Pei told TechRadar. “We found 59 percent of our community already owned wireless headphones earlier this year – and that was before we launched our Bullets Wireless headphones.”

Ready for a new pair of Bullets? Discover the Type-C Bullets earphones in our latest deep-dive on the forums.

— OnePlus (@oneplus) September 13, 2018

OnePlus made a bit of a show keeping the feature around, with Pei polling users on Twitter. The results were overwhelmingly pro-jack. That OnePlus maintained the input for a few more models makes sense — the company has long prided itself on the direct line of communication it maintains with its fan base.

And besides, forcing users to buy pricey Bluetooth headphones would have gone a ways toward counteracting the company’s focus on budget. Of course, there are plenty of cheap options these days, including the aforementioned $69 OnePlus bullets. The move leaves a smattering of headphone jacks remaining on flagship phones, including, most notably, Samsung.

As for what it’s adding, among other things, the upcoming 6T will be among the first handsets in the U.S. to sport an in-display fingerprint reader.