Sorry, Samsung fans: Leak confirms Galaxy Note 10 won’t have a headphone jack

Last week, a leaker released Galaxy Note 10 and Galaxy Note 10 Pro renders based on stolen CAD designs and they offered us our first look at the upcoming Samsung flagships. The renders seemingly confirmed what previous Note 10 rumors said about the phone’s design, but they also revealed a couple of extra tidbits. In addition to changing the location of the hole-punch camera and rear-facing cameras on the new Note, Samsung made two other major design changes concerning the Bixby standalone button and the 3.5mm headphone jack. Long story short, both of them are gone.

There’s no reason not to trust the leak, considering that its source has provided accurate design leaks in the past for many unreleased phones, which means the Note 10 will be Samsung’s first flagship to lack a headphone jack. If you were still skeptical though, we now have a brand new leak that says the same thing.

The following 3D renders for a Galaxy Note 10 case were shared on Twitter by a different leaker who has an even better track record, Ice Universe:

The design matches the renders from a few days ago when it comes to certain features, like the camera module placement and orientation, the physical buttons, and the curvature of the phone’s edges. The case also seems to confirm that there won’t be a Bixby button on the side or a 3.5mm headphone jack on the top or bottom. We have several cutouts on both sides, but they’ll line up with microphones (top and bottom) and what appears to be an IR blaster. Cutouts for the USB-C port, S Pen stylus, and bottom speaker are also visible.

The render can’t reveal any details about the Note 10’s display, but we expect the phone to feature an Infinity-O screen with the hole-punch selfie camera placed in the middle. The fingerprint sensor, meanwhile, should be positioned under the display near the bottom, just like on the Galaxy S10.

As is the case with any leak, there’s no way to completely verify any of this information at this time. These new cases do match the previous renders, but we’re still looking at rumors in both instances. These brand new images are sourced from Chinese social network Weibo, but it’s unclear who created them or whether the design here is based on last week’s renders or information obtained from Samsung. Even if that’s the case though, they come with Ice Universe’s blessing so we’re obviously inclined to believe that they’re accurate.

Samsung is currently getting ready to launch the Note 10, which should be announced in early August. Manufacturing preparations should be underway, which would explain all these leaks. As with other phones, accessory makers need access to design information from Samsung to have their products ready in time for launch.

As annoying as the lack of a headphone jack might be, I’ll remind you that Samsung offered early Galaxy S10 buyers free wireless headphones, the new Galaxy Buds, which is the kind of promotion Samsung might run for the Note 10 phones as well in a couple of months — especially if the Note 10 doesn’t have a headphone jack.