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

Posted by BeauHD on from the first-of-its-kind dept.

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.

8 of 70 comments (clear)

  1. Why is it better than scanner on back? by elwinc · · Score: 2

    Honestly, why is a fingerprint scanner built into the display better than one on the back? On my phone, the scanner is high up in the center of the back, right where my index finger goes naturally when I grab the phone. This makes one-handed operation smooth and easy.

    Seems to me a scanner on the front is just an ergonomically inferior gimmick. Perhaps some enlightened soul can cure my ignorance...

    --
    --- Often in error; never in doubt!
    1. Re:Why is it better than scanner on back? by JaredOfEuropa · · Score: 2, Informative

      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...

      --
      If construction was anything like programming, an incorrectly fitted lock would bring down the entire building...
  2. I love living in the future by Applehu+Akbar · · Score: 2

    ...Where a cellphone-unlocking fingerprint sensor can be called "traditional."

  3. covert fingerprint collection... anywhere by Speare · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Now that it's shown to be possible to scan a fingerprint without an obvious fingerprint scanning area, be ready for the fingerprint wars. Any touchscreen anywhere, from a gas station pump to an ATM to a plain glass door, could be outfitted with a collection device to gather all our greasy fingertip data. And with the courts assuming that you have no expectation of privacy with third party data, everywhere is open season for state actors.

    --
    [ .sig file not found ]
  4. Apple couldn't do it by p51d007 · · Score: 2

    But a 3rd tier company did. (BBK electronics...Oppo, OnePlus, Vivo). You can bet if Apple comes up with one at a later date, it will be applauded as "stellar" and "cutting edge". I think they have so much invested in that silly look at the phone thingy, they won't ever do it though.

  5. Apple could and did do it by SuperKendall · · Score: 2

    Apple did have prototypes with behind the glass fingerprint readers. But they realized how much better FaceID would be, and they threw everything they had into making it work...

    That was the right choice. TouchID is an archaic technology now, a relic of the old times.

    --
    "There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
  6. Don't need to go that far by SuperKendall · · Score: 2

    And how reliable is it if I use a potato peeler to remove your fingertips? Can I use those flesh slices get in to your phone?

    You can leave that peeler at home sir! Since this fingerprint scanner is entirely optical, it should be very easy to fool with a lifted fingerprint reprinted onto anything.

    --
    "There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
  7. Re:Who cares how fast it is by ColdWetDog · · Score: 2

    It's NOT a 'picture' of a fingerprint. It is hash of certain properties pulled off the scanner. Those properties are going to be unique to that type of scanner and possibly each individual unit.

    You can't send the info to the FBI so they can place it in the 'pre pedo' data file.

    So you're off the hook for now.

    --
    Faster! Faster! Faster would be better!