What a shame. I was just going to look at them to see if they make for a good upgrade. No more.
I have a Galaxy Note 9 with a headphone socket. However, my primary means of listening to music on the phone is via a Radsone ES100 Bluetooth DAC/Amp. Yes, the inclusion of the headphone socket is useful on the odd occasion I plug headphones in at home, but it's far from essential (and I could just as easily plug the headphone into the Apple USB-C adapter I also own).
Surely the other characteristics of a phone, such as software, speed, screen size/resolution, storage, etc. are at least as important and the inclusion of a 3.5mm socket?
The thing is, all that doesn't impede upon the inclusion of a audio jack. The software is storage, RAM, and CPU gated. Speed is CPU/GPU/RAM gated. Screen size and resolution are the top layer of the phone acting as the display thus no interaction or PCB realestate taken up aside from a ribbon connector, storage perhaps but not when you have microSD cards the size of a corn flake.
Also, lets say it has an effect with respect to PCB footprint (and thus gates something like CPU die size in the extreme case). The fact that a jump in performance isn't monumental, also stands to reason there isn't a monumental reason to get rid of the jack.
The only reason the jack has been removed is because Apple set the precedent for others to follow. And now that there's a gentlemens agreement (aside from lower-tier phones, and of course LG for now), manufacturers simply aren't concerned with what consumers want, especially if there is no massive setback in terms of sales. To which there obviously isn't as you can see people are more than willing to use wireless interfaces, or just doggles.
You are looking at this backwards. The 3.5" headphone socket is a legacy feature. The continued inclusion of legacy features is considered during the product development process. At some point, the cost of retaining the feature will be weighed against the benefit of keeping it and the impact of removing it. Samsung don't need reasons to get rid of the headphone socket, they need reasons to keep it.
By that metric, you're simply redefining the device itself.
taking the place of this salvaged "real-estate"
manufacturers steer consumer expectations
Wonder how long with wireless pad charging, and wireless headphones we're off from removing all buttons and connectors on smartphones.