HTC U12 Plus won’t include a USB-C to headphone adapter

HTC made the U12 Plus official last week, but buried in the details of HTC’s latest flagship was an unfortunate catch: along with not having a headphone jack, the phone also won’t include a USB-C to 3.5mm adapter for using traditional wired headphones, as spotted by Android Police.

HTC isn’t leaving users completely stranded, however. The company will still include a pair of USB-C headphones in the box, and it will still sell its $11.99 adapter separately (although it’s currently sold out online). Plus, as my colleague Vlad Savov has pointed out, HTC’s adapter that it shipped with the U11 and U11 Plus was terrible, and it only worked with HTC phones.

If given the choice of using your old headphones out of the box or having to shell out an extra $12 for a hard-to-find adapter — as limited as HTC’s is — it’s hard to be pleased with HTC’s decision here either way. That’s especially true considering how volatile and difficult it is to find a decent, functional USB-C to 3.5mm headphone adapter.

It was HTC’s decision to leave off the headphone jack, and it was HTC that made the poorly received the adapter the first time around. So it should be on HTC to make sure that there’s a functional option in the box for its users, not give up and leave users hunting for a dongle on their own.

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