Now-deleted FCC images appear to confirm the forthcoming Samsung Galaxy Note 10, expected to be unveiled in August, won't have a 3.5mm headphone jack
Chris Welch / The Verge :
Context & Ripple Effects
Samsung has been walking toward this for months: a May source report said the Note 10 would drop the headphone jack and replace physical buttons with capacitive areas, and an August render of a bundled 3.5mm-to-USB-C adapter all but sealed it. The now-deleted FCC filing images are the regulatory-paperwork confirmation that the leak chain was accurate.
What makes the move notable is that Samsung held the line longer than most rivals — its Galaxy S10 leaked earlier this year still showing a headphone jack — and its own history of stripping features is long: the Note 5 lost the removable battery and microSD slot back in 2015. The Note 10 extends that pattern to analog audio on Samsung's biggest screen.
First-order effects
- Note 10 buyers who use wired headphones must rely on the USB-C adapter or switch to wireless or USB-C audio — no dongle-in-the-box fallback beyond what Samsung bundles.
- Samsung now has to defend the removal publicly, which it does by claiming the freed space buys a 2%-3% larger battery and better haptics (its official justification).
Second-order effects
- Accessory makers shift the Note 10 accessory lineup toward USB-C headphones, DAC dongles, and adapters — the same category expansion that followed Apple's jack removal.
- The port change cascades into Samsung's own ecosystem: the company confirmed Note10 and 10+ won't work with its Gear VR headset (a direct casualty of the hardware redesign).
Third-order effects
- With the last major holdout among top Android flagships dropping the jack, wired analog audio becomes a budget-and-midrange feature, and 'no headphone jack' stops being a differentiator reviewers penalize.
- Each Note-generation feature strip-out — removable storage in 2015, buttons this year, the jack now — normalizes removing user-serviceable and legacy hardware from flagships, setting buyer expectations for what a premium phone includes.
The trend: Flagship smartphones are converging on a port-minimal, wireless-first design where each generation sheds another legacy input, with Samsung — the last major holdout on the headphone jack — now falling in line.