There’s plenty to love about Sony’s brand-new Xperia XZ2 and XZ2 Compact, starting with the fact they look nothing like previous high-end smartphones manufactured by the Japanese multinational conglomerate corporation.

But change is not always good, and Sony’s long overdue transition from an “OmniBalance” to an “Ambient Flow” design language came with a substantial amount of extra bulk. The XZ2 is almost four millimeters thicker than the XZ1, while the latest Compact flagship jumps from its predecessor’s 9.3mm profile to an unusually chunky 12.1mm waist.

Let’s not get into how much heavier Sony’s next-gen hero devices are, as it’s perhaps not fair to compare a 5.7/5-inch duo with 5.2 and 4.6-inch handsets. What’s truly mind-boggling about the Xperia XZ2 lineup is the removal of the time-honored 3.5mm headphone jack, despite there clearly being enough room to accommodate such a valued audio port for so many users.

The company’s excuse for this seemingly inexplicable decision is likely to aggravate customer outrage, as a “Sony Mobile MWC 2018 FAQ” discreetly posted a while ago claims “designers needed to remove the headphone jack” in order to create the “beautiful” new “seamless design.”

That… doesn’t make a lot of sense, and it’s also difficult to grasp how a “major market trend toward wireless headphones over wired headphones” justifies the jack’s untimely death. Why not let each individual user make that choice? Well, technically, you can still use wired headphones with the Xperia XZ2 and XZ2 Compact, with a nifty (no, not really) dongle included in the retail box as standard, Hi-Res Audio support and all.