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The flagship smartphones of the Samsung Galaxy S21 have finally been officially unboxed. As expected, these flagship Samsung products for the start of 2021 are packed with cutting edge specs. On the list of upgraded specs we also find the new (claimed to be) much improved in-display ultrasonic fingerprint scanner on all three Galaxy S21 devices. Samsung claims the new sensor is 1.7 times larger than the previous generation. We believe this new ultrasonic fingerprint scanner on the Galaxy S21, Galaxy S21 Plus, and Galaxy S21 Ultra improves biometric unlocking on these devices for reasons other than just increasing the scan area.
Before we go over how the Galaxy S21 series fingerprint scanner is improved, let’s talk about ultrasound scanners first and how they differ from other built-in fingerprint scanners.
What is an ultrasonic fingerprint scanner?
The popularity of integrated fingerprint scanners picked up a few years ago with the economics – and therefore greater availability – OLED or AMOLED screens. There are currently two main types of integrated fingerprint scanners on the market: optical and ultrasonic. The two types of optical fingerprint scanners send signals of different kinds and record reflections. These reflections allow the sensors to create a reference image at the time of recording and used later for authentication.
As expected, optical fingerprint sensors use light while ultrasonic sensors use pulsed ultrasonic sound waves to scan your finger. Since optical scanners can only form an image of the lines visible at your fingertips, they form a 2D image of your fingerprint. In contrast, ultrasonic sensors can create a three-dimensional image. Theoretically, this means that ultrasonic fingerprint scanners should be more reliable and even usable when your finger is wet or dirty.
However, that didn’t exactly turn out in favor of ultrasonic fingerprint scanners as expected. The ultrasound scanner available on Samsung flagships since the Galaxy S10 series is slow and unreliable. Samsung attempted to fix these issues with a software update to improve unlock speeds and another to address the failed authentication that allowed anyone to unlock devices. However, the new updated fingerprint scanner is designed to address these issues inherently.
How is Samsung Galaxy S21 fingerprint scanner better?
As we mentioned above, Samsung claims that the Galaxy S21 series fingerprint scanner is 1.7x larger than the previous generation, namely the Qualcomm 3D sonic sensor used by Samsung on previous devices such Galaxy S10, Galaxy Note 10, Galaxy S20 and Galaxy Note 20 Series. Following the Galaxy Unpacked event, Qualcomm officially confirmed that the Galaxy S21 series uses the Sonic 3D ultrasonic fingerprint scanner. Very recently announced Sensor Gen 2 from Qualcomm.
Along with a 77% larger area, the new Qualcomm Galaxy S21 series ultrasonic sensor is said to offer 50% faster scanning. The new features will undoubtedly improve the unlocking experience and security on all Galaxy S21s as well as other upcoming devices that feature the same.
In actual demos, just like the one posted by Ben Schoon from 9to5Google, the new fingerprint scanner looks really eye-catching. We’re going to test it extensively while looking at Galaxy S21 devices and also comparing it to past Samsung flagships. In the meantime, here’s the video Ben posted on Twitter after the Galaxy event:
The S21 fingerprint scanner is faster, but not better than the optical one. Too early to talk about precision
Definitely a huge improvement tho pic.twitter.com/iR9tHvpfl4
– Ben Schoon (@NexusBen) January 14, 2021
The Samsung Galaxy S21 Ultra is the ultimate overkill in the new 2021 flagship series, packed with a flagship SoC, premium build, great display and incredible camera setup, plus all the extras you’d expect on a high-end flagship. .
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