Huawei Dives Into In-Display Fingerprint Scanning with New Porsche Design Phone

“In its implementation, Huawei’s in-display sensor allows users to wake up the phone just by dangling a finger above the display, and then touching it to unlock the device via biometric authentication.”

Huawei has unveiled its new flagship smartphones, and one with an in-display fingerprint sensor is indeed among them.

Contrary to speculation, the innovative technology is not in the new Huawei P20 nor the P20 Pro, but in the new Porsche Design Huawei Mate RS. It’s the continuation of the partnership that delivered the Huawei Mate 9 Porsche Design in autumn of 2016, a device that sported a pioneering under-glass fingerprint sensor. At the time, the innovation pointed the way toward in-display fingerprint sensor technology, which was widely anticipated to be the big mobile innovation of 2017. But the world’s first phone with an in-display scanner didn’t actually arrive until this year, with Vivo’s X20 UD Plus. While a sequel to that device hits the market this week, Huawei is still very much in an exclusive club with its Porsche Design Huawei Mate RS, establishing itself as another pioneer in mobile fingerprint biometrics.

In its implementation, Huawei’s in-display sensor allows users to wake up the phone just by dangling a finger above the display, and then touching it to unlock the device via biometric authentication.

The company hasn’t revealed the supplier of its in-display technology. Fingerprint Cards was the company behind the under-glass sensor of its Huawei Mate 9 Porsche Design, and announced that it had developed in-display fingerprint sensor technology last autumn, though no commercial deployments of the technology have yet been announced. Meanwhile, a recent rumor pointed to Qualcomm as the supplier of Huawei’s in-display sensor, with that firm having first announced its technology last June, and also yet to confirm a commercial deployment.

Other features of the Porsche Design Huawei Mate RS include a six-inch, curved 2K OLED screen, a 4,000 mAh battery, microcapsule PCM cooling technology, and a Leica triple camera system combining a 40MP RGB sensor, a 20MP monochrome sensor, and an 8MP sensor with a telephoto lens. And, bizarrely, an additional, rear-mounted fingerprint sensor, a superfluous feature that no doubt added its own contribution to the device’s $2,000+ price tag.

Sources: Huawei, PhoneArena, CNET