Opinion | The HTC U12+ ditches the headphone jack and yet doesn't ship with a 3.5mm to Type-C adapter

HTC unveiled the U12+ a while ago. While the device appears to be worthy of all the attention, its overall package is slightly marred—perhaps—by the fact that it doesn't feature a headphone jack. Of course, 3.5mm jacks are becoming a rarity in the market but it's indubitable that there's a section of the market that labels any device without a jack as DOA.

Ditching the jack is bad enough but it would seem that the company has taken it one step further by shipping the U12+ without an adapter. Prior to this, virtually all devices released without a headphone jack have shipped with a 3.5mm to Type-C adapter, to grant users continued usage of their traditional wired audio equipment. Not the U12+, though, as buyers of the device will have to make do with third-party adapters.

The prospect of buying third-party adapters isn't all that terrible, but there's the issue of compatibility. The company recommended its own headphone adapters for the U11, for example, claiming that third-party adapters could have issues due to proprietary design. That doesn't mean third-party adapters will not work, but buying them comes with the consequences of you having to shell out cash for accessories that should come with your device, and also hoping the user experience doesn't suffer due to compatibility issues.

Admittedly, the company does ship the device with its own USonic Adaptive Earphones, which is nice but not particularly impressive. The whole thing reeks of corporate strong-arming, I'd say. Slightly unwise decisions like this could very well be why the company's smartphone division has been comemrcially dead in the water for a while now.