Facepalm: Sony’s headphone jack dongle works on one phone, breaks quick charging

At Mobile World Congress 2018, Sony revealed its new flagship devices, the Xperia XZ2 and XZ2 Compact. The design of the phones is a drastic departure from Sony’s previous designs (for better or worse). One of the design changes made is the removal of the headphone jack. Today, a dongle hit the Sony online store that will make even the most ardent of Sony fanboys facepalm.

Here at Android Authority, we tend to wear our opinions on our sleeves. You’ll notice that the majority of us here do not like the trend of removing headphone jacks from smartphones, as we make that opinion loud and clear. This new Sony dongle is a perfect example of why we feel that way.

The dongle is supposed to enable users to both charge their phone and listen to music at the same time. Obviously, it’s pretty easy to do that with a headphone jack, but Sony seems to think this dongle is just as convenient:

The dongle isn’t much different from the iPhone dongle that got relentlessly made fun of when it was announced with the iPhone 7 and iPhone 7 Plus. Not only does it overly complicate something that was as simple as could be with a headphone jack present, but the dongle is device-specific; this dongle will only work on the Sony Xperia XZ2 and XZ2 Compact. Even Apple made its dongle able to be used on any of its phones.

To add insult to injury, the dongle also breaks quick-charging. According to the specifications of the unit, when using it to listen to music and charge your phone at the same time, it only has a charging speed of 5V/0.5A, which is not going to charge quickly. In fact, if you have the screen on while the phone is charging, that’s not even enough power to actively charge the device; you’ll either stay at the same battery level the whole time or actually lose power as you go.

Oh, and one more thing: this dongle costs extra. When you buy the phone, you’ll get a straight USB Type-C to 3.5 mm headphone jack dongle that won’t let you charge your phone and listen to music at the same time. You’ll have to buy this extra dongle for that capability, and it will set you back €19.90 in Europe (about $24) and 209,00 DKK in Denmark (about $34). Yikes.

Getting rid of the headphone jack was a silly decision, and Android smartphone manufacturers following Apple off the cliff like lemmings in this respect (and with the awful notch) is infuriating. But this move by Sony is just asinine. I would not buy the Xperia XZ2 just because of this dongle fiasco alone.