We have long heard rumors that Samsung has been working on an in-display fingerprint sensor for its flagship handsets. It would mean that its handsets would have a fingerprint sensor integrated within the display itself. Samsung hasn’t even demonstrated the technology as yet but a Chinese manufacturer by the name of Vivo showed it off at CES 2018 earlier this month. The company is now going to release the first smartphone with an in-display fingerprint sensor in a couple of days.
Ubergizmo’s co-founder Hubert Nguyen tested out the in-display fingerprint sensor of the Vivo handset and found it to be very cool even if it was a little bit slower than current fingerprint sensors. Nevertheless, this is going to impact phone designs in a major way.
The technology itself has been developed by Synaptics and it has now started mass producing these in-display fingerprint sensors. It goes without saying that it’s only a matter of time before other manufacturers start sourcing this particular component from Synaptics as well.
Vivo has scheduled an event in Beijing, China on January 24th where it’s going to formally launch the Vivo X20 Plus. That’s what the first device with an in-display fingerprint sensor is called. It features a 6.4-inch display, a Qualcomm Snapdragon 660 processor with 4GB of RAM and a 12 megapixel dual-lens camera on the back.
It will only be confirmed at the event on January 24th just how much Vivo is going to charge for this device. The Vivo X20 Plus will initially be released in China only so it remains to be seen if and when the company releases this handset elsewhere.