Weekly poll results: in-display fingerprint readers are preferable to face recognition

Three quarters of voters in last week’s poll prefer an in-display fingerprint reader over a face recognition system. There were discussions of security and practicality, but hardware limitations also played a role – face scanning equals a large notch or a chunky top bezel.

Of course, many people were saying “why not both?”, but makers tend to go with one or the other – e.g. when Apple introduced Face ID, it dropped Touch ID, Google followed a very similar path.

Huawei did offer both with the Mate 20 Pro, but that didn’t last. The Huawei P30 Pro dropped the 3D face scanner on the front to make the notch smaller. The Mate RS Porsche Design was an oddity - it had one of the first in-display FP readers, but also a rear-mounted one. Huawei never followed up on that, though.

By the way, there were many proponents of the rear (or side) mounted fingerprint reader, however makers see it as a “lite” feature as opposed to a premium one – just look at the P30 and P30 lite, Galaxy S10 and S10e, etc.

Not necessarily a bad thing, unless you want a flagship with a FP reader on the back/side. Then you’re looking at only a few options – a Sony Xperia 1 or Xperia 5, plus the Honor 20 and Pro.

So, unless we’re talking about Apple (which can be quite stubborn), it looks like in-display fingerprint readers are the way to go forward.