This phone is set to beat the Galaxy S9 to an in-screen fingerprint scanner

We’ve been waiting a long time for a phone with a fingerprint scanner built into the screen and it looks like Vivo is going to be the first to launch one, and that it will be coming very soon.

Just a few days ago Synaptics announced an in-screen scanner, and while mentions of things like ‘OLED’, ‘infinity display’ and ‘top five’ smartphone vendor in the press release made it sound a lot like the Samsung Galaxy S9 would be the first to use it, it’s actually Vivo according to Forbes.

This isn’t entirely surprising though, given that a leak earlier this year showed the Vivo Xplay 7 as having an in-screen scanner, so that might well be on the way.

Fast and cheap

And it sounds like the scanner might work well. Forbes claims the scanner was fast and simple, though notably in its pre-production form it did require waking up the screen with a button press before using it – a step which will hopefully be removed by the time it hits the market.

According to Synaptics it’s also apparently faster and cheaper than Face ID, so you might not have to spend a small fortune to get a phone with an in-screen scanner.

We don’t know exactly when Vivo’s phone will land, but Synaptics has said in its press release that it’s soon to be announced, so we might see it early next year – perhaps at CES 2018 or MWC 2018.

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James Rogerson

James is a freelance phones, tablets and wearables writer and sub-editor at TechRadar. He has a love for everything ‘smart’, from watches to lights, and can often be found arguing with AI assistants or drowning in the latest apps. James also contributes to 3G.co.uk, 4G.co.uk and 5G.co.uk and has written for T3, Digital Camera World, Clarity Media and others, with work on the web, in print and on TV.