'I Tried the First Phone With An In-Display Fingerprint Sensor' (theverge.com)

Vlad Savov from The Verge reports of his experience using the first smartphone with a fingerprint scanner built into the display: After an entire year of speculation about whether Apple or Samsung might integrate the fingerprint sensor under the display of their flagship phones, it is actually China's Vivo that has gotten there first. At CES 2018, I got to grips with the first smartphone to have this futuristic tech built in, and I was left a little bewildered by the experience. The mechanics of setting up your fingerprint on the phone and then using it to unlock the device and do things like authenticate payments are the same as with a traditional fingerprint sensor. The only difference I experienced was that the Vivo handset was slower -- both to learn the contours of my fingerprint and to unlock once I put my thumb on the on-screen fingerprint prompt -- but not so much as to be problematic. Basically, every other fingerprint sensor these days is ridiculously fast and accurate, so with this being newer tech, its slight lag feels more palpable. Vivo is using a Synaptics optical sensor called Clear ID that works by peering through the gaps between the pixels in an OLED display (LCDs wouldn't work because of their need for a backlight) and scanning your uniquely patterned epidermis. The sensor is already in mass production and should be incorporated in several flagship devices later this year.

Comments

Re:Why is it better than scanner on back?

[JaredOfEuropa]

I often leave my phone on the desk. To unlock it, I just touch my finger to the home button (this is an older model iPhone). If the scanner is on the back, I'd have to pick up the phone first. Which is of course a huuuge inconvenience...

But seriously, the Home button is a good place for the scanner, since that's what you click to wake up the phone; that way you unlock it at the same time. It's fast and completely seamless, as if there's no lock on the phone at all. Of course the new iPhone has no home button anymore...