Samsung Galaxy Note 9 May Get Galaxy S9's Missing Feature
Fingerprint scanner
According to Chinese site ZOL (translated via Google) the first Samsung phone to get an under-the-display fingerprint scanner may be the Galaxy Note 9, rather than the S9. The story, found by Pocket-lint, suggests that a patent application is about to be filed that shows the under-screen scanner.
Samsung was always going to bring an under-the-screen fingerprint scanner to its phones sooner or later. The technology for this has been developed by numerous companies like Qualcomm and Synaptics and has been displayed in demo units - I saw the Qualcomm one several years ago. And Samsung won't be the first to implement this tech, as a company called Vivo has already shown off the tech.
The Vivo X20 Plus UD was demoed at CES this year - covered by The Verge - has a scanner built-in to the screen and uses the Synaptics system. It reads your fingerprint through the tiny gaps in an OLED display, and therefore can't work with LCDs. The Qualcomm system I saw uses ultrasound to read your fingerprint and is many times more secure than existing fingerprint scanners because of the extra detail it can resolve. The ultrasound also penetrates water with ease, meaning wet hands cease to be a problem.
There have been a lot of rumours over the past year suggesting the S9 might have been the first phone to get this tech, but the usual shower of leaks shows that we're more likely to see the now-traditional, rear-mounted fingerprint reader on the back of the phone. That, in turn, suggests that the Note 9 might be Samsung's first phone to see in-screen fingerprint scanning.
Samsung is, reportedly, keen on developing its own system for reading fingerprints. There were suggestions that it was trying to build this tech into the Note 8, but couldn't quite manage it. There were rumours that Apple was doing the same for the iPhone X but was also unable to make the system work reliably enough. It could be worth noting that Apple did move the X to OLED, so perhaps it was looking at the system Vivo used in its device demo.
The S8 may well have its own new technology to help boost security. Iris scanning is already a decent enough system for most people and while I had issues with the facial recognition on the Note 8 I suspect that this technology will continue to evolve perhaps by merging both the iris and facial scanning. So the question is, will people want to return to fingerprint scanning at all? Perhaps on the iPhone where the "notch" causes some people to get upset and could be reduced or eliminated by an in-display scanner. On Samsung's phones though, the bezels are already near-invisible on all sides.
But to sell new phones all companies have to have new ideas. The under-screen fingerprint scanner seems like an amazing way to sell phones as futuristic and exciting. It feels like the sort of thing you'd see in a sci-fi movie, and that will likely create lots of column inches for Samsung with the Note 9 launch this summer.
This is all great news for the Note 9, but here's something to ponder on. The S9 looks like it will be Samsung's most expensive S series phone yet, and the Note 8 wasn't exactly cheap. So what price will we see the Note 9 appear at? My guess is that it will make the iPhone X seem much more normal.
">Fingerprint scanner
According to Chinese site ZOL (translated via Google) the first Samsung phone to get an under-the-display fingerprint scanner may be the Galaxy Note 9, rather than the S9. The story, found by Pocket-lint, suggests that a patent application is about to be filed that shows the under-screen scanner.
Samsung was always going to bring an under-the-screen fingerprint scanner to its phones sooner or later. The technology for this has been developed by numerous companies like Qualcomm and Synaptics and has been displayed in demo units - I saw the Qualcomm one several years ago. And Samsung won't be the first to implement this tech, as a company called Vivo has already shown off the tech.
The Vivo X20 Plus UD was demoed at CES this year - covered by The Verge - has a scanner built-in to the screen and uses the Synaptics system. It reads your fingerprint through the tiny gaps in an OLED display, and therefore can't work with LCDs. The Qualcomm system I saw uses ultrasound to read your fingerprint and is many times more secure than existing fingerprint scanners because of the extra detail it can resolve. The ultrasound also penetrates water with ease, meaning wet hands cease to be a problem.
There have been a lot of rumours over the past year suggesting the S9 might have been the first phone to get this tech, but the usual shower of leaks shows that we're more likely to see the now-traditional, rear-mounted fingerprint reader on the back of the phone. That, in turn, suggests that the Note 9 might be Samsung's first phone to see in-screen fingerprint scanning.
Samsung is, reportedly, keen on developing its own system for reading fingerprints. There were suggestions that it was trying to build this tech into the Note 8, but couldn't quite manage it. There were rumours that Apple was doing the same for the iPhone X but was also unable to make the system work reliably enough. It could be worth noting that Apple did move the X to OLED, so perhaps it was looking at the system Vivo used in its device demo.
The S8 may well have its own new technology to help boost security. Iris scanning is already a decent enough system for most people and while I had issues with the facial recognition on the Note 8 I suspect that this technology will continue to evolve perhaps by merging both the iris and facial scanning. So the question is, will people want to return to fingerprint scanning at all? Perhaps on the iPhone where the "notch" causes some people to get upset and could be reduced or eliminated by an in-display scanner. On Samsung's phones though, the bezels are already near-invisible on all sides.
But to sell new phones all companies have to have new ideas. The under-screen fingerprint scanner seems like an amazing way to sell phones as futuristic and exciting. It feels like the sort of thing you'd see in a sci-fi movie, and that will likely create lots of column inches for Samsung with the Note 9 launch this summer.
This is all great news for the Note 9, but here's something to ponder on. The S9 looks like it will be Samsung's most expensive S series phone yet, and the Note 8 wasn't exactly cheap. So what price will we see the Note 9 appear at? My guess is that it will make the iPhone X seem much more normal.
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